I completely understand that practice and, normally, would expect it to continue.
However, I harbor the notion that Fast & Furious is completely different -- and, ergo, should be handled differently.
Rational people would agree that the Bush administration's alleged crimes ("torture", etc.) weren't crimes at all. To have treated them as such would've criminalized politics and punished what were legally supportable judgments.
But Fast & Furious is not a simple error in judgment: it was an administration policy that directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent people (including, but not limited to, American citizens). Moreover, the policy was illegal on its face. And, more than likely, was expressly designed to subvert the Constitution -- the highest law of the land.
If such brazen attempts at lawlessness by the federal government are not addressed, there is a very real threat that annother administration in the not-so-distant future will stretch the envelope even further.
In my view, Fast & Furious was hardly your garden variety scandal. It was worse than Watergate by, not one, but several magnitudes. I agree that appropriate punishment is unlikely; Obama will surely pardon the chief offenders. But the national posterity demands that the entire sordid story be revealed and the offenders identified.
Otherwise, we risk even further excursions into lawlessness.