By: Jeffrey Klein
Political Buzz Examiner

All of the constitutional lawyers and most of the GOP legislators in Washington, D.C., and around the country, are questioning the true motivation and ultimate legality of Barack Obama’s eleventh-hour presidential prerogative of asserting ‘Executive Privilege‘ over “Fast and Furious” documents early Wednesday morning.

It was a clear move to erect a “Maginot Line” [of defense] to protect his Attorney General, Eric Holder, against a swiftly progressing Contempt of Congress action, which passed its’ first hurdle late yesterday afternoon, in a party line 23-17 vote in the Republican-dominated House Oversight and Government Reform committee.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), took the remarkable action against Holder for failing to provide all 70,000 documents demanded from him in an October 2011 subpoena.

Obama’s action immediately caused GOP lawmakers to speculate that the documents contained information so damaging that the president was willing to risk the bad PR by moving to lock them down, according to a FOXNews article today.

They also questioned whether Obama’s assertion was even legitimate–memorializing their contention that it is not legitimate–by a vote of the committee later in the session.

Republicans also repeatedly said that Obama’s assertion amounts to a de facto acknowledgement of White House involvement in Fast and Furious discussions.

“He’s either part of it or he’s not,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, a feisty Republican lawmaker from South Carolina, challenged during Wednesday’s committee meeting on Holder.

“If [Obama’s] part of it, then we’ve had a series of witnesses that have misled this committee. And if he’s not part of it, then he’s got no business asserting executive privilege.”

Even House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman said the move “implies” the White House was involved in the operation itself–or the cover up.

And next week the Republican dominated House will surely pass the Contempt of Congress citation, then sending it to Federal District Court for prosecution–alla Richard Nixon and Watergate circa 1974.

Understandably, the political stakes in this escalating scandal are clearly manifesting themselves in the declining demeanor of the President Obama, as he addressed the press on Tuesday during the G20 Summit in Mexico.

Afterwards, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni shared his observations on CNN with host Piers Morgan, according to Noel Sheppard’s article with video imbed on Tuesday.

After Morgan played the short 1:35 minute video clip, they had this exchange on camera…

Bruni: “He doesn’t seem in command.”

Morgan: “He looks a little bit on edge, the President, at the moment. A little less self-assured and calm.”

Bruni: “Well, right there, I mean, he looked really de-energized. I was watching him, you know, as he stepped to the podium. One of the whole advantages of being President, of being the incumbent, is you get those settings – the flags behind you, the podium. You get the international audience.”

“And he strode out there…and, the cadence of his speech was very slowed down. There was a lot of hemming and hawing. He got the first question from the press and answered, that answer went on and on and on, and he provided this really strange tutorial on European economic dynamics, and I just, I don’t think that’s what he went to do when he went to that microphone.”

Then Bruni put his exclamation point on it … “He doesn’t seem in command.”

Perhaps it is because President Barack Obama already realized by then, that his plan to assert ‘Executive Privilege,’ to protect he and Holder, could fail like the original Maginot Line–due to false assumptions about their opponent–and result in his no longer being in command.