Another day, another right-wing conspiracy theory about guns. This time it's that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not running for President because she must be nefariously involved in the failed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Fast and Furious program. Of course, Clinton has consistently said she will not seek the presidency in 2012 since long before Fast and Furious became public.
The details of the ATF's operation Fast and Furious are certainly worthy of the investigations being undertaken in both Congress and Department of Justice's office of the Inspector General. But since Fast and Furious became public, right-wing blogs, Fox News reporters and gun lobbyists have all pushed a variety of baseless conspiracies related to Fast and Furious.
Right-wing media has previously claimed that Fast and Furious was funded by the stimulus bill; not true. They also thought Attorney General Eric Holder mentioned Fast and Furious in a speech; again not true. They've long asserted Holder and the White House must have known/approved of the program early on despite a lack of evidence; Bush-appointed former ATF acting director Michael Sullivan said that wasn't necessarily the case. They've gone as far as to suggest, again without evidence, that Fast and Furious has deliberately set up with the intention of arming the cartels to justify increased gun control.
So no surprise that today gun blogger Mike Vanderboegh asserts that Hillary Clinton's recent statement that she is not running for president against President Obama must be caused by her being somehow implicated in the Fast and Furious program.
Vanderboegh:
Does anybody seriously believe that Hillary has lost her appetite for power? If this “reluctance” is so, it is because she's got some dirty Gunwalker underwear she doesn't want outed in public.
Of course, Clinton's comments are not new.
Q- Would you like to be president of the United States?
No
[....]
Q- President of the United States?
You know, I had a wonderful experience running and I am very proud of the support I had and very grateful for the opportunity, but I'm going to be, you know, moving on.
Clinton, who has repeatedly laughed off suggestions she might still want to take command of the White House, told an audience of Bahrain students that she was not contemplating a repeat run for president after losing to Barack Obama in 2008.
“No, I'm not,” Clinton said. “I think I'll serve as secretary of state as my last public position and then probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she is not running for president in 2012, 2016, or ever again. “I am very happy doing what I'm doing and I am not in any way interested in or persuing anything in elective office,” Clinton tells “FOX News Sunday.”
Asked on the Today show whether she will ever run for president again, the former First Lady and U.S. senator, who fiercely battled Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic nomination, laughed heartily and replied: “No. No. No. I mean, this is a great job. It is a 24-7 job. And I'm looking forward to retirement at some point.”
Theories of Hillary Clinton's involvement in the Justice Department program largely revolve around her support for some gun control measures and her expressing concern (dating well before Fast and Furious was started) that too many U.S. guns were making their way into the hands of cartels. By right-wing media standards, hard evidence.