Nick and Rachel get furious, fast

I am completely smitten by a 10 minute clip of Nick Gillespie's appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher where he begins to set the record straight on the Fast and Furious scandal. But first, here's the background:

Under President George W. Bush, the ATF conducted Operation Wide Receiver, where guns were sold in a classic sting operation. In theory, the guns were to be tracked through surveillance, hidden transmitters and cooperation with the Mexican authorities so they could be recovered. When this system started to fail the program was scrapped.

Under President Barack Obama, the ATF conducted Operation Fast and Furious where the guns were sold to people working for drug cartels. The serial numbers were recorded, but there was no surveillance, hidden transmitters or cooperation with Mexican authorities. The idea was to get the guns in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels to try to establish a link with the original purchasers.

After guns ATF agents put in the hands of the drug cartels were used to kill a Border Patrol Agent and an ICE agent, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigated the Fast and Furious program.

It's entirely possible that the Obama administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, did not know about Fast and Furious until it started, and then shut it down when they learned about it. We don't have proof of any further knowledge on the subject.

What we do know, however, is that Holder told Congress that he knew nothing of Fast and Furious. He said that no emails of conversations about the operation existed, but later President Obama used Executive Privilege to block the congressional committee from seeing the documents - the same documents Holder said did not exist while he was under oath.

A vote declares Holder in contempt of congress, despite a failed attempt from democrats to protect Holder and paint the vote as a partisan witch hunt.

For more information on Fast and Furious, see Jon Stewart and Mike Munger.

With those formalities out of the way, let's see Nick Gillespie and Rachel Maddow discuss the issue.



This clip's YouTube title was labeled "Nick Gillespie owns Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher over Fast and Furious." Amusingly, a shorter clip entirely contained within the previous one was posted with the inverse title "Maddow Owns Nick Gillespie on Bill Maher about Operation Fast and Furious."

The comments up on YouTube at this time find that title to be a joke. What say you, dear reader?