So, b.o. is so inept a leader that he doesn't know the major happenings of the agencies he's in charged with commanding. Well, that's super reassuring.

Yes, A program was already happening at a low level of the government. And with the economy crashing, people losing their lifes savings and the auto industry about to crash Obama should have known every half assed operation going on in bumfuk no place.

Our Gov. ran the guns and armed the cartels using cooperating FFL's and known straw purchasers such as Uriel Patino who was allowed to buy 720 guns.
The obvious result was a lot of death with some high profile murders and kidnappings. Are you thinking that the F&F gun helped the GOM catch El Chapo?

I don't know about that. Sometimes I think a lot of stuff goes on even though the public thinks it's stopped.
if it wasn't stopped then perhaps the real perpetrators would be caught.

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Happy 100th Birthday, Lois Dickenson Malone!

They knew who the straw buyers were but chose to let them keep buying and increasing the danger. The ATF and USAO rounded up the straw buyers quickly after Brian Terry's murder and lied about walking guns. The Feb 4 letter to Grassley signed by Ron Weich denying gun walking was a lie. Holder finally conceded that F&F guns are out there killing and sadly can't be retrieved except at crime scenes like El Chapo Guzman's lair where some bad guys died and a marine was wounded.

If I were running a business or government office and some low level bonehead ran a program that resulted in a couple of hundred deaths, several thousand guns in the wrong hands, and years long embarrassment and distraction while I was busy with a collapsing economy, people losing their savings, industries crashing, you can damn sure bet that heads would roll. Otherwise the great unwashed might think I knew about it all along.

Who got fired?

Talk to those folks in Arizona

I don't remember any firings. Neither does Google. Lots of recommendations for firings, only a couple of transfers actually happened.

My memory says that the speculation was that they were transferred out to avoid any interviews. Even their new job location was not made public.

The conceivers and implementers of F&F aren't idiots but in fact very bright guys and gals. From Newell to McMahon and up the chain of command of ATF and the DOJ. Lanny Breuer is a very bright and intellectually nimble. So why create this monster that effectively armed the worst of the worst with no legitimate law enforcement value? It wasn't a "botched sting" or a situation where ATF "lost track" of guns. That implies some unintentional goof-up. What we have instead is a gun pipeline to the cartels as is evidenced by crime scene data including El Chapo Guzman.
The justification for this scheme and the danger to the public and law enforcement seems to be wrapped up in what Newell, Burke, and the DOJ had in mind. 1. That the ATF didn't let guns walk 2. That the cartels would've got these guns anyhow. On this thin basis was the ethical justification. All Newell could do at the hearing was to accept responsibility for not doing "more frequent risk assessment".
There are also those who contend that the Gov. likes to fix problems that they deliberately create in order to inflate their status and justify their existence.

The government that controls all weapons will control all the people, as well as all the food, water and shelter, and will sell them to the people at a high price.

This "gun runner" scam is only the beginning.