The optics of cover-up. Holder thinks that if he prevents the mothers of Gunwalker from appearing on camera along with his face he can ward off the ghosts of his guilt.

“I know they’re lying . . I know they’re just nothing but liars.” -- Kent Terry, Brian Terry's dad, reacting in the Daily Caller to claims made by Holder and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer that they didn’t know about Fast and Furious.

Holder and his "general lackeys," later in the hearing, 8 December.

Today, it’s a privilege to be joined by several of our key public safety partners. These five police executives – Chief [Fred] Bealefeld of Baltimore, Commissioner [Ed] Davis of Boston, Chief [Rodney] Monroe of Charlotte, Chief [Ralph] Godbee of Detroit, and Commissioner [Charles] Ramsey of Philadelphia – have been leaders in developing and implementing innovative and effective crime prevention strategies. They have also worked closely with the Department in advancing critical efforts to reverse the alarming rise in law enforcement fatalities in recent years. The work we do along the Southwest border is influenced by the efforts they have undertaken in their own cities. -- Eric Holder, Hearing, 8 December 2011.

When Eric Holder began his opening statement on 8 December, five liberal Democrat police chiefs sat behind him like a phalanx of lackey myrmidons. The optics of this moment, and the machinations of securing the seats directly behind the witness table, were carefully crafted by the DOJ in order to avoid what they most feared -- Eric Holder having to testify with ordinary citizens, or worse, Mr. and Mrs. Terry and Mr. and Mrs. Zapata, sitting right behind him within the camera's steady gaze whenever he lied, obfuscated, dodged and weaved.

As it happens, the Terry's and the Zapata's were not there, although some folks expected them to show. But the fact that "Holder's generals" were speaks volumes.

(Side snark: The use of general's stars on the shoulders of police chiefs is, to this citizen, ludicrous. The display of four stars (and at least one was a five-star) in duplication of military rank is past egotistical silliness for a mere politically selected police bureaucrat.)

For what Eric Holder and his fellow Gunwalker conspirators fear is the rise of a group, no matter how small, similar to the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo -- The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo -- an association of Argentine mothers whose children "disappeared" during the Dirty War of the Argentine military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

The shawl of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, is a unique organization of Argentine women who have become human rights activists in order to achieve a common goal. For over three decades, the Mothers have fought for the right to re-unite with their abducted children.

In protests, they wear white head scarves with their children's names embroidered, to symbolize the blankets of the lost children. The name of the organization comes from the Plaza de Mayo in central Buenos Aires, where the bereaved mothers and grandmothers first gathered. They have continued to convene there every Thursday afternoon for a decade.

The Mothers' association was formed by women who had met each other in the course of trying to find their missing sons and daughters, who were abducted by agents of the Argentine government during the years known as the Dirty War (1976–1983), many of whom were then tortured and killed. The 14 founders of the association, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti, Berta Braverman, Haydée García Buelas, María Adela Gard de Antokoletz, Julia Gard, María Mercedes Gard and Cándida Gard (4 sisters), Delicia González, Pepa Noia, Mirta Baravalle, Kety Neuhaus, Raquel Arcushin, Sra. De Caimi, started the demonstrations on the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, on 30 April 1977. Villaflor had been searching for one of her sons and her daughter-in-law for six months. She was taken to the ESMA concentration camp on 8 December 1978.

The military has admitted that over 9,000 of those kidnapped are still unaccounted for, but the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo say that the number is closer to 30,000 - a predicted 500 among this figure are the children born in concentration camps to pregnant 'disappeared' women and given to military related families, whilst the remaining number are presumed dead. The numbers are hard to determine due to the secrecy surrounding the abductions. Three of the founders of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have also "disappeared". After the fall of the military regime, a civilian government commission put the number of disappeared at close to 11,000. In January 2005, the body of French nun Léonie Duquet, a supporter of the organization, was exhumed, without an established identity. Duquet's disappearance had caused international outrage towards the Argentine military government. DNA tests concluded, on August 30 of that year, that the body exhumed in January was that of Duquet.

Azucena Villaflor's remains, together with those of two other pioneer Mothers, Esther Careaga and María Eugenia Bianco, were also identified by a forensics team in mid-2005. Villaflor's ashes were buried at the foot of the May Pyramid in the Plaza on 8 December 2005. -- Wikipedia.

Note that the Argentine junta did not at first treat the Mothers seriously. When more mothers and Argentine citizens joined them, they did what they were used to: the set the secret police on them. Yet despite the fact that some of their own were "disappeared" to intimidate the others to go home, they did not. In time, they formed the principal moral indictment of the military regime. The "disappearances" became a major international cause celeb and contributed to the downfall of the generals.

Of course the "general" in the present case, Eric Holder, doesn't have the option of "disappearing" Mrs. Terry or Mrs. Zapata. In Mrs. Terry's case, though, Eric got statistically lucky -- the fact that Brian's cousin is a current serving Secret Service agent and early on jumped in as the "family spokesman." Sources say, however, that, according to one, "he acts more like a DOJ handler than a family spokesman," keeping media people as far from the family as possible. To what extent the Secret Service man had in the decision by the Terry's not to attend the hearing is unknown. This reporter has never contacted them, nor the Zapatas, nor intruded on their grief.

But Eric Holder fears their grief. You may depend upon it. The contrived image of the "lackey generals" sitting behind him at the opening of the 8 December hearing tells us as much. And he is right to fear it. If the American and Mexican mothers of the victims of the Gunwalker Scandal ever get together and begin to dog his trail in an Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, he could not stand the indictment of public opinion. He could not stand the ghosts of Brian Terry, Jaime Zapata and all the Mexican victims of his Gunwalker conspiracy, standing behind their mothers, pointing their bloody fingers at one man responsible for both their deaths and the cover-up thereof.

That is why those fake generals were there, to ward off the ghosts.