Tomorrow, the eighty-second Attorney General of the United States of America, Eric Himpton Holder, Jr., will be asked to raise his right hand and swear that the information he will be offering to the House Oversight Committee is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".
What happens beyond that point will likely be a turning point in the story of Operation Fast and Furious, Mr. Holder's career, the Obama administration, and, quite possibly, the United States of America.
Should Mr. Holder continue to hold fast to his assertion that no top official in the Justice Department knew anything about Fast & Furious until after it had gone seriously off the rails, the divisiveness that has stopped constructive activities in the nation's capital will likely continue.
Should Mr. Holder admit that top officials in his department knew anything about the operation prior to the explosion into the public consciousness brought about by the murder of a border patrol agent, he will likely open a can of worms that may destroy any remaining faith average citizens have in government.
Should Mr. Holder go the way of former U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Cunningham and invoke his Fifth Amendment right and refuse to answer the Committee's questions, there's absolutely no way to predict the result.
Whatever happens, there's little chance the ongoing investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into Fast and Furious will do anything to restore anyone's faith in government -or today's Justice Department.
The Democratic members of the committee issued their minority report on the investigation earlier this week. In ninety-plus pages, the report worked through their evidence (absent of hysteria or a political agenda) and laid the blame at the feet of the Bush administration.
The report also absolved every senior official in the current administration of any wrongdoing. Basically, the report says "Bush did it, so we did it too". Not much of an explanation for an operation that has cost lives on both sides of the US/Mexico border.
The Justice Department has already taken some casualties.
Patrick J. Cunningham, formerly the chief of the Arizona U.S. Attorney's office finished his last day in that job on Monday. He resigned in the fallout of his now-infamous letter to Senator Charles Grassley denying "gunwalking" had ever happened.
Former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke had already been unceremoniously tossed under the bus in what appears to be a concerted effort to contain the fallout from Fast and Furious to Arizona.
Meanwhile, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) remains determined to move up the chain of command. Issa has already gone on record- repeatedly- calling for Mr. Holder's resignation. He's also made it clear that he ultimate plans to question Mr. Holder's boss about the matter.
Outside the United States, observers say Americans seem to be divided into two camps on Fast and Furious: those who haven't heard about it, and those who have heard about it and are baffled that people aren't more upset about it.
Chief baffler, they say, is Mr. Holder who was described in The Economist as "not furious enough" about the matter. Should Holder not be more forthcoming tomorrow, the pressing threat won't be a pressing threat to the department's reputation, it will be Mr. Holder's continued stonewalling.
And the stakes continue to grow. On the eve of Mr. Holder's testimony, Issa has sent a four-page letter to the Attorney General, threatening to hold him in contempt of Congress should his department fail to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents. Issa's letter claims the Justice Department has "misrepresented facts and misled Congress" throughout the year-long investigation into Fast and Furious. Issa then sets a deadline of February 9 for Holder to comply.
Thursday may be an important day in our history, but it almost certainly won't be one of the most shining examples of democracy in action.
With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, most of us will be watching the game and the accompanying spectacle of new TV commercials. There's one Super Bowl-exclusive spot that most of us won't see due to restrictions against issue-oriented ads on the national broadcast.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Boston counterpart Thomas Menino will team up for a "anti-illegal gun commercial". Yep, they'll be shown sitting (in animated discussion and clad in their team jerseys) on the couch in front of a television.
But they won't be arguing Giants/Patriots.
Instead, Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna says they'll be "taking the opportunity to talk about the nation's broken background check system that allows criminals and dangerous people to buy guns illegally".
As always, we'll keep you posted.
--Jim Shepherd
