<p>{jcomments on}<img class="caption" src="images/stories/wayne_lapierre_nra150.jpg" border="0" alt="Wayne LaPierre" title="Wayne LaPierre National Rifle Association" align="left" />The Obama administration doesn't seem interested in providing information or answers about Operation Fast and Furious to the House Oversight Committee, but instead appears content to try and damage the credibility of Committee Chairman Darrell Issa. A story in the Washington Post relies on anonymous sources to allege that Issa and the Oversight Committee were briefed on the scandalous operation last year and failed to lodge any objections at the time. The intent of the piece seems clear; portray the investigation into Fast and Furious as just politics as usual.</p>
<p>One of the reporters for the Post story is Sari Horwitz, just back from a suspension that lasted several months after she was caught plagiarizing material. Maybe her journalistic chops are a little rusty, because I can't figure out why she would quote anonymous sources to allege that Issa was briefed on "all the things [he] has been screaming about" without asking one simple question: Did the briefing discuss the fact that the ATF was getting guns end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels? The anonymous source doesn't say, and Horwitz apparently didn't ask. But the spokesman for the House Oversight Committee, Frederick Hill, told the Post in no uncertain terms that these anonymous figures are, "incredulously trying to assert that Obama administration political appointees at the Justice Department were ignorant — yet Congress was in the know on the details of Operation Fast and Furious.''
