Project Gunrunner/Operation Fast and Furious update

Do you remember when they told us that if we voted for McCain it would mean at least 4 more years of non-transparency in our federal government? Well, they were right.

From the L.A. Times:

Five months after U.S. immigration agent Jaime Zapata was shot to death by a Mexican drug cartel, his family is demanding to know whether the weapons were purchased in the United States and smuggled into Mexico under the now-defunct Fast and Furious operation.

The family complains that U.S. authorities in Washington and Texas have refused to answer crucial questions about the Feb. 15 ambush on a four-lane highway in northern Mexico.

"What happened with Jaime needs to come out," the family's lawyer, Raymond L. Thomas of McAllen, Texas, said in a telephone interview Sunday. "And the likelihood that these were Fast and Furious guns is certainly plausible."

Mexican authorities have announced nine arrests in the high-profile case. Among them was Jesus Rejon Aguilar, a Zetas cartel leader who was captured near Mexico City this month.

In Washington, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is seeking information on the Zapata slaying.

Nelson Peacock, assistant secretary for legislative affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the immigration and customs agency, told Issa in a letter Friday that investigating Zapata's killing was a priority.

"Like you, the department wants to ensure that his murderers are brought to justice," Peacock wrote.

We've seen various reports, particularly in the electronic media, calling Fast and Furious a "botched" operation. From what we've seen, heard and read thus far, nothing could be further from the truth - this was all a text book operation and instead of staying mum and stonewalling the House oversight committee investigation, the Justice Department ought to be trumpeting and celebrating its success.

Someone very high up in the food chain within the Justice Department signed off on a plan to let guns purchased here in the U.S. to walk back across the border and into the hands of Mexican drug cartel king pins, some of whom may have already been on the Justice Department payroll, to bolster a narrative of an unchecked southward flow of guns to Mexico so that new gun regulations to stem this flow could be enacted and that is precisely what happened.

A brilliant sleight of hand by the Obama administration if we do say so ourselves.