Another scandal that could take Obama down

Sometimes the news seems stranger than fiction.

Who could dream up a plot line like this?

Several law enforcement agencies of the federal government, including the FBI, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, got together to hatch a plan to sell guns to Mexican drug cartel members – at least one of which was later used to murder a Border Patrol agent.

Can't be, right?

Wait a minute. It gets worse. It now appears the money used by the known criminals in Mexico was federal "stimulus" money.

I know. It's a nightmare. It's government gone wild.

Yet that is exactly what the aptly named "Project Gunrunner" seems to have been all about – with a scandal and ensuing cover-up big enough to bring down Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Members of Congress have been trying to investigate, but are getting no cooperation from Holder and the Justice Department. Apparently, the plan of the Obama administration was for the acting director of the ATF to take the fall. His name is Kenneth Melson – but he has other ideas.

Melson says he first found out about "Project Gunrunner" – also called "Operation Fast and Furious" – after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, killed with a gun sold to the Mexican gangs by U.S. law enforcement personnel.

But after checking through the files on the program, Melson said he got "sick to his stomach" by what he found – the direct involvement of the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, etc.

While Melson is talking to congressional investigators, Obama's buddy Holder is in full stonewalling mode. He won't give Rep. Darrel Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the time of day.

The Obama administration appears to have put together a sophisticated, inter-agency conspiracy to provide money to Mexican gangsters to purchase guns from the U.S. to kill federal agents, but it is not at all happy about explaining itself to the American people, the press or Congress.

Initially, Holder tried to dismiss the operation as a botched sting run by ATF to track and stop cross-border arms-trafficking. But that story is a dead letter after secret testimony provided by Melson on July 4 to congressional investigators.

Melson wanted to testify earlier, but Holder stopped him. Holder pressured Melson to quit his job and go away. But he's not having any part of that. He may have become Obama's worst nightmare after Jerome Corsi.

Try to picture this: Holder, the FBI, Homeland Security, DEA and ATF all get together to run a sting operation at least partly in a foreign country. Is it even conceivable that Obama would not have to be informed of such a plan? Not likely. This was an operation with international consequences. If Obama didn't know, whose fault is that?

And then we get into the question of what really might have motivated such an elaborate plot. Is the explanation we've received really plausible?

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Or is it more likely that the ideologically driven Obama administration, which detests the constitutionally protected right of every American to own and bear firearms, was actively participating in a diabolical political program to put U.S. guns into the hands of Mexican gangsters as part of a false flag operation that would be used to seize the guns of U.S. civilians?

The old line is that the cover-up is worse than the crime. Maybe not in this case. What could Holder be so afraid of revealing that he would lie to Congress (a crime in itself) to conceal? Chances are it's pretty bad – probably worse than my scenario.

Just so you don't think I'm making this up, here's what ATF investigators told members of Congress last month – that they wanted to "intervene and interdict" large numbers of guns at the border, but were ordered to step aside and let them fall into the hands of the drug cartel.

"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals – this was the plan," John Dodson, an ATF agent, told the panel. "It was so mandated."

Agent Olindo James Casa said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."

Do you see why I say this is another scandal that could bring Obama down?

Mona Charen A Wedding: Not Just for Royals

By the time you read this, Prince William and his bride, Catherine Middleton (who, depending upon the distribution of titles, may henceforth be known officially by the odd formulation "Her Royal Highness Princess William of Wales"), will have exchanged vows. The organ will have boomed the recessional. The royal carriage with its elegantly adorned and perfectly groomed horses will have paraded the happy couple through cheering crowds in a London bedecked with Union Jacks and flowers. And the guests in their finery will have feasted on a sumptuous wedding breakfast.

You needn't be a royal watcher to join whole-heartedly in the rejoicing at a wedding. And we should celebrate -- not because the principals are royalty, but because marriage itself badly needs reinforcing. For the past several decades, we've been conducting an experiment to determine whether marriage really matters all that much to society. The results are in. But the news hasn't yet been taken on board.

People like Kate and William (absent the title) -- college-educated, upper-middle-class strivers -- are not the ones who need reminding about the importance of marriage. Among the upper middle class, marriage continues to be the norm. Among the lower middle class, though, marriage rates have collapsed.

This has created a cultural gulf between classes in America that affects every aspect of life and arguably threatens the cohesion of America itself. This territory has been explored by Kay Hymowitz in her 2006 book, "Marriage and Caste in America," as well as by scholars like Sara McLanahan, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe, among others. Charles Murray's forthcoming book, "Coming Apart at the Seams," which he previewed in a recent lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, examines marriage as one of four key virtues that conduce to a healthy polity (the others are industriousness, piety and honesty).

Echoing George Gilder, Murray notes that marriage is crucial because it "civilizes men." Married men don't just earn more and have significantly lower rates of criminality, substance abuse, depression and poor health than single men. They also contribute more social capital to society. Married men are far more likely to coach little league, volunteer at church and shovel their elderly neighbor's walk. Married people, far more than singles (there are exceptions, of course), take responsibility not just for themselves and their children, but for the community.

In 1960, Murray observes, 88 percent of upper-middle-class adults was married. In 2010, the figure was 83 percent. A small drop. But among the working class, 83 percent of whom were married in 1960, the figure today is 43 percent. What does that mean?

Diana West How Will Congress React to the Latest Afghan Shooting

Even before the carnage inside Kabul airport was sorted and identified, before the squads of sober officers were deployed to inform stateside next of kin, and before the caskets were filled, closed, and draped with flags for the final flight home, this much we knew: Another Afghan Muslim "partner" in uniform -- a veteran Air Force pilot -- had opened fire on NATO trainers in a meeting, killing eight U.S. military personnel and an American contractor.

Question: Will our U.S. representatives -- and those of the deceased -- pay attention to this latest Afghan attack on Americans? If so, will they a) yawn; b) cluck; c) raise hell; d) none of the above?

The fact is, these murders are not "just one of those things" -- the unfortunate outcome of a "disagreement," or even "financial pressures" as mentioned, straight-faced, in early reports. These ritualistic murders of Westerners, like similar assaults before them, are the most shocking manifestations of our foundationally flawed policy of nation building in the Islamic world. They are some of the flesh-and-blood sacrifices to the make-believe "Democracy Project," whose postmodern-day missionaries believe must be advanced on the backs of the U.S. military according to the quasi-holy doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN).

It's way past time to call it off. The simplest reason is because it's crazy, and probably literally so in a certifiable sense. We, the people, have empowered elected officials to order our military forces to risk their lives not for our country but for a theory. A theory based on the absurd premise that the Western way is also the "universal" way. A theory whose practitioners must suppress logic, historical knowledge, moral principle and, most basic of all, survival instinct. And that's crazy.

Consider this evidence from the Clarksville (Tenn.) Leaf Chronicle. Last week, the newspaper sent a reporter to witness a bizarre event that tragically defines our age: a Fort Campbell send-off for troops en route to Afghanistan to "partner" with Afghan "allies," one of whom had just killed five U.S. troops, also from Fort Campbell (a separate killing spree). The story's headline is "NCOs offer stern message for war-bound soldiers." That message is, "Don't trust anyone but you still have to partner up."