ANATOMY OF AN ATROCIOUS CONGRESSMAN

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Bear with me and read this pronouncement on the threat of global warming from the Website of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.:

"Too often, when congress [sic.] is asked to pass environmental legislation, the legislation is based on emotional junk science rather than data based on reproducable [sic.], rigorous, tested, peer-reviewed results. In no area has this been more obvious than climate change. Because the Kyoto Treaty and much of the suggested environmental legislation would decimate jobs in southern California, constituents may be interested to learn of the growing scientific consensus that global warming is not manmade, if it is in fact even occuring. [sic.] "

Even some of the most hardened adversaries of science in the Bush Administration now concede the reality of global warming, but Rohrabacher soldiers on, disseminating the same disproved ratshit. He could probably plead ignorance, except he has no interest in knowing the real truth, making him an especially grievous liar. He figures the next generations inheriting the poisons for which he crusades (this includes his own three children) will just have to look out for themselves the same way he looked out for himself.

“Soldiering” on, though, is an inappropriate term in the context of Rohrabacher, an Iraq war hawk who ducked out on the draft during Vietnam. Witnesses contend he showed up to his Selective Service physical with an x-ray of a knee he claimed was beyond salvation. Yet he also boasts he was surfing regularly.

You might expect a hypocrite like him with the mind of a sparrow, a creep who never held a job outside politics or government, to hail from some deeply atavistic hollow in the furthest reaches of Dixie, where deprived, Dust Bowl constituents don’t have the wherewithal to sort out the goods on their congressional representative.

But no, Rohrabacher represents one of the richest districts in America – California’s 46th – which hugs a sliver of the coast from Newport Beach up to Palos Verdes. He’s elected by an educated bunch whose members drive luxury SUVs, live in mansions with breathtaking Pacific views, and have their plastic surgeons on speed dial.

Rohrabacher is an example of what extreme gerrymandering gets you. His district has the shape of a flattened salamander, carved carefully by the State Legislature to ensure its congressional representative can do what he likes with those few Democrats caught inside -- ignore them, insult them, anything goes. He once met with constituents from Military Families Speak Out and spent most of fifteen minutes yelling at them. Women cried.

As long as he's not convicted of a felony and continues to screw the middle and lower classes, the man can’t lose an election. He uses campaigns as an excuse to enrich his personal treasury, which can be freely drawn upon for all sorts of expense-account dodges. Democratic opponents, who can raise only pennies, are no more than sacrifices.

I live in the 46th, and I know its people. They don’t give a damn about the environment or the war. And they're no Creationists, either. They worship material luxury. Rorhabacher can say or do what he likes on superfluous issues because they have only one issue – tax breaks. They want lots of them. Cut their taxes and they don’t mind if you send poor kids off to Iraq to be killed, crippled, or permanently traumatized. These are the people who really run the Republican Party, and of course their net worth makes them a tiny elite. The party hands out what it considers trivial, non-fiscal favors to the far more numerous religious fascists, gun nuts, and racists who make up the rest of a coalition. Thoughtful, decent Republicans still aboard this macabre train delude themselves.

The irony is that huge spender-borrower Bush is wasting $2 trillion on his optional war while he starves us of social benefits. Like Rorhabacher and the bozos that elect him, he doesn’t care what happens to the next generations that must pay the debt he’s accumulating as long as taxes are low now. Apres moi, le deluge, as Louis XV pronounced. Thanks to vicious greedheads like Rohrabacher, there's another deluge coming.