'Fast and Furious' Continues To Dog Obama Administration

Revived by a crude effort to smear a witness

Fast and Furious is back. As if the Obama Administration needed an additional problem, the U.S. Justice Department inspector general said Monday that one of the department's politically appointed officials retaliated against a whistleblower by leaking derogatory information to a Fox News (NWS) television producer.

Named for a misbegotten federal gun-trafficking investigation that began in Arizona in 2009, Fast and Furious eerily foreshadowed themes now casting ominous shadows over Obama's second term—and warming the cockles of vengeful Republican hearts. Chief among these themes is the administration's habit of exacerbating operational calamities—a lethal attack on a poorly secured U.S. outpost in al Qaeda country, for example; a leak of counterterrorism secrets; or a dysfunctional, overreaching IRS bureaucracy—by crudely attempting to stage-manage the fallout and deflect blame.