To much fanfare, President Barack Obama went before Congress last Tuesday to reflect on his past year. My, what a doozy it has been.

The theme of the Obama administration in 2011 was irresponsibility. Coming from a college student who is used to witnessing (never, heaven forbid, committing) acts of sheer-stupid irresponsibility on a daily basis, this is quite the crowning achievement.

Blake Seitz

Amid a number of mistakes, one has received less media attention despite two ongoing investigations and a number of recent, embarrassing document dumps by the Department of Justice.

As swarms of Congresspeople, bureaucrats and rent-seeking lobbyists played fast and loose with your wallet last year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was implementing Operation Fast and Furious, a gunwalking sting it hoped would lead to the arrest of high-ranking members of Mexican drug cartels such as Sineloa, El Teo and La Familia.

Over the course of three years, ATF agents brokered the sale of more than 1,000 assault weapons, machine pistols, and even .50 caliber sniper rifles to suspected arms traffickers, who in turn resold the weapons to the Mexican cartels [“Issa warns ATF not to retaliate against whistleblowers,” The Daily Caller, June 22, 2011].

The intent of this program was to track the weapons to the highest levels of cartels, but as it turned out, the ATF never had much of a plan to track the weapons. Once they crossed the border, they disappeared — to turn up again, in many cases, at the crime scenes of cartel carnage.

According to the House Oversight Committee, Fast and Furious weapons have been linked to the murders of at least 150 Mexican innocents and at least one U.S. border patrol agent, 40-year-old Brian Terry.

Let me say that again so it sinks in: more than 150 people murdered by guns we knowingly allowed into the hands of professional thugs.

Without a doubt, this is Obama’s Iran-Contra scandal, and Attorney General Eric Holder is his Oliver North.

Holder, who knew about the operation months in advance, is doing everything he can to obstruct judges and Congressional investigators such as Darrell Issa from untangling the details of who knew what and meting out justice [“ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010,” CBS News, Oct. 3, 2011].

This is the darkest of ironies, considering Holder works out of the Department of Justice.

And it is all too characteristic of an irresponsible administration.

— Blake Seitz is a sophomore from Dallas, Texas majoring in political science and public administration and policy