The National Review abandons Issa

My colleague Josh Gerstein reports on an unexpected take from the National Review:

One of the best-known media outlets for the conservative cause, National Review, is dismissing a popular theory on the right that the Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning probe was part of a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration to advance gun control by sending weapons to Mexican drug gangs.

The scenario sounds improbable, but in a column earlier this week National Review's Robert VanBruggen took House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to task for fueling such suspicions.

"Some Fast and Furious critics have [been] concocting a conspiracy theory: specifically, that the Obama administration allowed the guns to go to Mexico deliberately in order to increase gun crime there, so it could cite that crime as a reason for more gun control here. And unfortunately, Fast and Furious’s lead critic, House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, has joined them," VanBruggen wrote.

One of the best-known media outlets for the conservative cause, National Review, is dismissing a popular theory on the right that the Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning probe was part of a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration to advance gun control by sending weapons to Mexican drug gangs.

The scenario sounds improbable, but in a column earlier this week National Review's Robert VanBruggen took House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to task for fueling such suspicions.

"Some Fast and Furious critics have [been] concocting a conspiracy theory: specifically, that the Obama administration allowed the guns to go to Mexico deliberately in order to increase gun crime there, so it could cite that crime as a reason for more gun control here. And unfortunately, Fast and Furious’s lead critic, House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, has joined them," VanBruggen wrote.

During an interview on ABC Sunday, Issa said the question of whether the program was set up as part of an effort to impose gun control was an open one.

"So chicken or egg? We don’t know which came first; we probably never will," Issa said. "The people involved saw the benefit of....what they were gathering. Whether or not that was their original purpose, we probably will never know."

While there are e-mails indicating that some Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials hoped that facts uncovered in the Fast and Furious operation could be used to increase reporting requirements for firearm purchases, VanBruggen argues that it requires a huge leap in logic and in distrust for other people's motives to think that the whole operation was set up for such a reason.

"There is no direct evidence that anyone involved in the creation of Fast and Furious intended to increase gun crime in Mexico. The fact that someone looked to Fast and Furious for anecdotal evidence after the fact says almost nothing about the origins of the program. And on closer inspection, this theory isn’t any more understandable than the one that doesn’t require accusing the administration of murdering scores of Mexican citizens and at least one American law-enforcement agent for political gain. Even if we assume the Obama administration places no value whatsoever on human life, it’s hard to see how the gun-control scheme would have passed a cost-benefit analysis," the National Review writer said.

Asked for comment, Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said VanBruggen never reached out to Issa's office before the post.

"I thin Congressman Issa has been very clear….that the evidence indicates the impetus for creating Operation Fast and Furious was the desire to catch high-level cartel associates rather than focus on straw buyers," Hill said. "We do have do evidence indicating, during the operation itself, people participating in it thought the things that were happening could be used to justify new gun control measures."