Raptors Rule. Once an oxymoron, always an oxymoron. What's a little international arms smuggling conspiracy among friends? Daily Caller ambushes Ed Meese, who refuses to condemn Eric Holder.

Edwin Meese III, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, Heritage Foundation.

Edwin Meese III is a prominent leader, thinker and elder statesman in the conservative movement - and America itself.

Meese holds the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, where he is responsible for keeping the late president's legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.

He also is Chairman of Heritage's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, founded in 2001 to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution, legal principles and how they affect public policy.

These two Heritage "hats" keep Meese, a trusted counselor to Reagan before becoming Attorney General, among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoy quiet retirements. -- Heritage Foundation.

There is no worse oxymoron than the term, shorn of its capitalization, "big government republican." Matthew Boyle of the Daily reminds us that all the two-party system actors agree that raptors should rule with this excellent piece, "Reagan AG Ed Meese balks at Fast and Furious scandal, refuses comment."

“Well I have not commented on it because unless you’re actually there in the Department of Justice knowing everything that went on, it’s very hard to comment on it,” Meese told TheDC. “We all know that it was, that it came to ruin, if you will, that it didn’t work out as it had been anticipated certainly and that there were a lot of problems with it, very serious problems, tragic problems in one case. But, more than that, I don’t know other than what I read in the newspapers so I can’t really comment in detail on it.”

Meese also refused to comment when TheDC asked him who should be held accountable for the deadly operation. It’s been more than a year since Mexican drug cartel members used at least two of the 2,000 assault rifles Holder’s DOJ provided to them to murder Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, and even longer since many of the at least 300 Mexican civilians were killed with Fast and Furious weapons. To date, no one has been held accountable.

“Well, again, without knowing all the facts its really, really difficult to comment,” Meese said. “Having been attorney general, I know how hard it is, even when you have all the facts, to unearth some of these things, but without being there it really wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”

Of course, this comes from a guy who was in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair. I guess it's just a matter of "What's a little international arms smuggling conspiracy among friends?"

The larger point is this: there remain in the GOP many elements whose default position is to circle the wagons around federal power even when the Dems are the wagonmasters simply because they expect to wield the same power later on. But Boehner would NEVER interfere in the Gunwalker investigation, right? Of course not.

On some things, the Democrats and the GOP elites agree wholeheartedly.