Ranking House Republicans in Washington, D.C. gave Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher a subcommittee to ponder emerging threats in Europe and Eurasia, a move on par with Sheriff Andy Taylor giving Deputy Barney Fife a flashlight and putting him on a nightly UFO watch in Mayberry.
GOP big boys had to know the often-unstable, always quirky Rohrabacher, like Fife, would see looming apocalyptic threats everywhere.
In a prior dismissive assignment designed to keep the Costa Mesa Republican away from botching serious affairs, House Republicans gave him the power to investigate whatever he wanted; incredibly, he decided in 2008 to use federal tax dollars to solve the already solved, 1968 assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
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In his new subcommittee assignment, the world's the stage, which means that Rohrabacher embarrassments are now global.
Such was the case last week when the former Orange County Register editorial writer (who evaded military service during the Vietnam War) took a trip to Russia with Hollywood actor Steven Seagal.
The congressman's mission?
Get information on the Boston Marathon bombers by snuggling up to members of the Federal Security Services, or what used to be called the KGB.
Just as he absurdly championed the Taliban as rational, enlightened and pro-democracy while the group harbored Osama bid Laden in pre-911 terrorist days, Rohrabacher now is giving Russian leaders a pass on their human rights violations at the same time they are cracking down on freedom.
He claims what's most important is that the USA and Russian form a team against “radical Islam” and the Chinese.
The congressman's accomplishment-free trip didn't escape the eyes of the Washington Post, which blasted Rohrabacher on June 3 for exaggerating the threat of “radical Islam” as on the verge of toppling the U.S. and understating the thuggery of Russian leaders and government agents.
Concluded the Post, “The congressman displayed ignorance and naivete.“
With the likes of Rohrabacher, Seagal and Dennis Rodman conducting international diplomatic missions what could go wrong?
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Email: rs**********@oc******.com. Twitter: @RScottMoxley.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.