Again, Jon's version of events demands you being stupid enough to believe Darrell Issa's version of events. Up until now, I never thought Jon was that stupid, but stranger things have happened.
Here's the thing, to believe Issa's version of events, you have to believe that the Acting Head of the ATF, by his own admission, knew nothing about what the ATF Phoenix Field Office was doing, but somehow the U.S. Attorney General did.
Oh, and did I mention that the Acting Head of the ATF is Issa's Star Witness, and thought he was going to get fired by the Administration, which is why he went running to Issa in the first place? Purely a coincidence, I'm sure.
And then, Jon doubled-down the next day, June 21st:
First off, it actually began with an Operation called Wide Receiver in the Bush Administration before being killed and record as Fast and Furious, and the stated purpose actually made some sense. The ATF wanted to allow these purchases to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, in theory leading to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.
Problem was, ATF let the purchases happen, they tracked the guns to the people who were using them, who were hired thugs, not the major players in the Cartel. Since the purchases didn't go high enough up the chain of command, ATF let the purchases keep happening, hoping they'd get someone better so they could make an arrest. In fact, indictments didn't start happening until Obama became President.
And, to be clear, we lost 1400 guns, still an appalling figure, but...c'mon, Jon, that's the kind of Bullshit Fox News engages in.
Then there's the letter. That was my major problem with the bit. Jon kinda left out the part where the Head of the Phoenix Field Office, may have...you know...lied to the Justice Department about the existence of the program. That could be because Justice told him in 2009 not to engage in Gunwalking (but didn't do it clearly enough), and he went ahead and engaged in it anyway.
I know, details, details.
I would like to know why the hell did Stephen Colbert have a better grip on the damn story than Stewart did?
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A complete, unadulterated guide to my problems with what Jon Stewart said will be published in about 30 minutes.
