Mr. Rohrabacher writes a check

The LA Times reports that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Surfin') will be digging out his checkbook to return the $23,000 former producer Joseph Medawar paid the Surfin' One for an option on a movie script. Medawar, whom Rohrabacher assisted in making connections in D.C., is going to need that money– he's just pled guilty to swindling “about 50 investors” out of “roughly $3.4 million”.

Of course the real victim in all this is the movie going public, whose chances of ever seeing Baja, the Rohrabacher cinematic epic Medawar optioned, have been dealt a near fatal blow. Baja is the story of men doing very manly things with each other in Mexico. And while that does sound blockbuster-ish, and exactly the sort of thing one might expect from Dana Rohrabacher, I must confess that Baja is not my favorite Rohrabacher a screen-gem-in-waiting. That honor belongs to his script titled The French Doctoresse, “a romance set during the French Resistance”, which, as The American Prospect's Sam Rosen notes, “raised a few eyebrows for its oddly positive depiction of Adolf Hitler”. Is there a producer out there who has what it takes (including the ability to stay out of jail) to bring Dana's vision to the screen? Let us hope.