Bogus Report on Fast and Furious

    The Inspector General of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, recently released a 140-page report concerning his investigation of a border agent's death in a sting operation known as "Fast and Furious".
    Fox News has reported the essence of Horowitz's report on TV. It is a basic recrimination of incompetency, poor judgment, inadequacy and any other similar adjectives, for those involved. A key point is the claim that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder was not involved nor responsible for the inadequacies. It may also be recalled that Congress has been attempting for almost 2 years to obtain all of the information concerning Fast and Furious from Eric Holder, and the House Oversight Committee has filed a civil contempt suit against Eric Holder.
    I have not read Michael Horowitz's report and had no justification for belief on his conclusions. However, I thought it might be advisable to check some of the background in order to properly judge whether the report is worth reading and whether its conclusion should be seriously considered.
    Congress created the Office of Inspector General for various federal government departments through the Inspector General Act of 1978 and amended 1988. The act itself says that the Inspector Generals are appointed by the President. Wikipedia also says that Inspector Generals may not conduct investigations involving attorneys.
    Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz reports to Pres. Obama. Justice Attorney General Eric Holder reports to Pres. Obama. President Obama has every reason to protect his appointees.
    Since Inspector General Michael Horowitz did not have the authority to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder, by limitations of the Inspector General act of 1978, any mention of Eric Holder's involvement or noninvolvement in Fast and Furious is inappropriate. Therefore, the comment of Eric Holder's noninvolvement can be interpreted as a political statement, not consistent with fact.
    In view of the above, do you see any reason why I should read the 140-page report, nor believe anything that is said about it?
    However, there is something even more important about the situation. That is, the claim that Eric Holder was not involved In Fast and Furious and has no responsibility for its deficiencies. This is a complete turnaround for responsibilities of bosses that had existed for the last few hundred years. In essence, tradition says, and reaffirmed by Harry Truman, "The Buck Stops Here". What Pres. Truman meant, and what everybody knew, is that the boss is ultimately responsible for the successes or failures in the results of the organization. Since the boss has the opportunity of choosing adequately performing people and firing those of inadequacy, he has full authority and responsibility for performance.
    In the Fast and Furious case, Eric Holder either knew or should have known what was going on and should have taken any steps necessary to correct the program. He is primarily responsible for the failure and has been assisted in the failure by Pres. Obama, and also assisted by Congress, who has ultimate control.
    What really concerns me is the more general tendency of organizational leaders (bosses) to absolve themselves from any situation in the organization where things have gone wrong. These bosses are paid for doing things right and should be fired when they do things wrong.