Obama’s Sin Eater

Poor Kenneth Melson. Learning of his official death as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), from the pages of the Wall Street Journal, put in before he even faced the firing squad, has automatically made him a prime scapegoat. He has become the “sin eater” that the Obama administration has chosen to seek as an acquittal for the miscalculations, the lack of political sensitivity and the countless human tragedies behind the failed operation “Fast and Furious,” the ATF-overseen scheme of arms trafficking that would have allowed the illegal entry of between 2,000 and 2,500 high-powered weapons into Mexico during 2009 and 2010.

The operation has thrown this federal agency into the arms of one of the worst scandals in its history and has left it at the mercy of those who always have sought its ruin to the greater glory of the powerful arms industry, which in the United States generates annual sales totaling about $28 billion.

The imminent release of Melson, whose name appears in the emails provided on June 15 by the House of Representatives government oversight committee to single out the senior officials who oversaw the operations of “Fast and Furious,” will happen early this week, amid a damage control strategy that will seek to atone for sins while organizing the transfer of power.

Last Wednesday Congressman Darrel Issa, chairman of the government oversight committee, summoned the family of a Border Patrol agent killed in action last December, Brian Terry, to accuse the Justice Department and the heads of the ATF of having acted “stupidly and irresponsibly” in the operation of “Fast and Furious.” Many of those present wondered if perhaps this act went beyond a simple exercise in transparency, accountability and justice for victims to both sides of the border.

We wonder if perhaps this kind of action only serves to create a distraction, in shades of smoke, taking advantage of pain and outrage of the victims of “Fast and Furious” and the outrage and indignation in Mexico and the United States to seek the gradual dismantling of the ATF.

Perhaps that is why the Obama administration has decided it is time to make its move. By this logic, it appears that Melson’s exit seeks to organize the counter-attack necessary to prevent sectors of the Republican Party and the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) from getting away with this new operation of harassment and demolition.

However, even before his resignation took place, doubts about the decision to make Melson the “sin eater” for the operation “Fast and Furious” arose. The lack of certainty in assessing whether the head of Melson will be a sufficient offer has begun to thrive in media close to the Republican Party and among conservative blogs who communicate with the ideas and objectives of the NRA.

From these sectors, Melson’s resignation and possibly that of two of his subordinates, like deputy director Billy Hoover and Deputy Director of Operations William McMahon — others involved in e-mails released by the government oversight committee — will not suffice.

Defenders of the Second Amendment and the NRA anticipate that even a humiliating exit for Melson will be the ideal pretext that the Obama administration needs to move the appointment of Andrew Traver, the man appointed by Obama last November to become the director of the ATF. Traver, whose nomination has been impeded repeatedly by the powerful lobby of the NRA, through its transmission belts in Congress, has been placed in the line of succession that could materialize at the beginning of this week.

The future of the ATF will live in that way to see another chapter within the series of incidents that it has experienced throughout its history, plagued with harassment and demolition operations — a history of continued fighting for its survival from the time it was born in 1972.

Since then, the staff of 2,500 employees and agents has been maintained unswervingly, unlike other federal agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, that have experienced a remarkable expansion of personnel and resources, amid the pressures of those who have always wanted ATF diminished and devoid of the powers and duties to control the powerful arms industry.

The arms industry will certainly not be satisfied with the head of Kenneth Melson, with more guilt and sin that he drags with him in his humiliating withdrawal.