The OIG Report concludes that Holder didn't know about Fast and Furious until February 2011, and that is likely enough to protect the Attorney General from any further legal recriminations. But avoiding perjury or obstruction of justice, or being ignorant of your department's biggest scandal, is no cause for relief. His rabid detractors will never accept the idea that Holder could have been ignorant of the program. But whether he knew or not there's no dispute that he should have known. In an exemplary Justice Department, someone, anyone, should have stepped up and said to the boss: "There's something screwy going on in Arizona."

Which brings us to Lanny Breuer, the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. The OIG report confirms that Breuer knew about the program in 2010 and yet failed to tell his boss about it. Never mind what Breuer then said to Congress; this initial failure to report the critical information up the line is inexcusable and unacceptable. And so is Holder's failure this week even to mention, in his remarks responding to the OIG report, what Breuer belatedly conceded was his "mistake." Breuer should have resigned long ago. And, since he didn't, this week Holder should have fired him. Trust me, the Department can live without Lanny Breuer.

I understand that the folks at the ATF deserve blame here -- as well as those in the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix. Over and over again, as the OIG report details, these public stewards failed or refused to candidly assess the program. They were, it turns out, the wrong people for the job, and, ultimately, that's also the fault of the nation's chief law enforcement official, the Attorney General of the United States. When Holder took the job, he promised rigorous attention to detail, and fealty to candor within the Department, and the reemergence of integrity in all things. By each of those standards, the Justice Department has failed here.

I take no joy in writing this. I don't for a moment think that Eric Holder is another Alberto Gonzales. But even if you take the politics out of this scandal -- even if you strip it down to the bare essence of governance -- the central truth of the story is that the Justice Department failed to stop something stupid (and dangerous and, ultimately, tragic) from happening. And then, when the scandal came, the Department didn't move quickly enough to confront the truth, to reveal it, and then to take responsibility for what had happened. That wasn't good enough when the hapless Gonzales was running the show, and it's not good enough now.