It's a pleasure to see a lowlife lobbyist like Jack Abramoff going down, and it'll be even better to see his pals in Congress go down with him. Not only did he plead guilty to conspiracy and fraud, but he's also guilty of another crime: producing the atrocious Dolph Lundgren vehicle Red Scorpion.
As Salon tells it, Abramoff—who used to brag to friends about his "I'd Rather Be Killing Communists" T-shirt—left Washington for L.A. near the end of the Reagan administration to turn the ideology of his buddy Oliver North into cinematic art. Dolph plays a Soviet soldier assigned to kill an anti-Communist revolutionary in Africa, but he switches sides after seeing what the dastardly Soviets and Cubans are up to there. Abramoff shot the movie in Namibia, which was controlled by South Africa, thereby defying Congress's recently passed anti-apartheid act.
As a result, Warner Brothers dropped it. But Red Scorpion reached theaters in 1989 anyway, and anti-apartheid groups protested. Little did anyone guess at the time that Abramoff's International Freedom Foundation, founded three years earlier to "foster individual freedom throughout the world," was secretly funded by the South African Defense Force.
Red Scorpion 2, which Abramoff executive-produced shortly before returning to Washington, went straight to video.
I think your post begs for the following exclamation: There was a Red Scorpion II?!
Hell, at least he didn't write "erotic literature" ala "Scooter" Libby.
Posted by: Pacze Moj | January 09, 2006 at 11:59 PM