The Charade of Darrell Issa

By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT

So, this guy who made a stink-pile of money in the car alarm business, and had some youthful trouble with the law over auto-related liberties, gets the break he’s been waiting for after Republicans win control of the House in 2010. He’s given the keys to the biggest Caddie in Congress: the main oversight committee. It’s loaded with everything — subpoena power, an overhead cam worth of auditors and investigators, a hyperkinetic staff devoted to keeping shine on the boss.

He’s got plans, lots of plans. He’s going to stage television-ready hearings and investigations of the White House. He will bring Barack Obama to his knees. “I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks,” he says. Don’t worry about substance, he says of one subject field, “it’ll be good theater.”

For Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, it’s a dream come true, all the things they’ve been ranting about, finally getting the imprimatur of official business. For Darrell Issa, the congressman given free rein to free range in half-truths and conspiracies, it’s what he’s always wanted. He’s a player! He exists to give Fox and friends programming.

But then, after millions of dollars in investigative forays, the wheels come off the ride. Fast and Furious — that gunrunning scheme into Mexico by federal agents, known to conservatives as a vast conspiracy by Obama to bring on gun control — is traced to the White House, just as Issa predicted. Except, it was George W. Bush’s White House, where the practice of letting guns cross borders originated in a similar program called Operation Wide Receiver. Move along.

(More here.)