Less reality than advertised

A man has been arrested for ripping off investors for more than $5.5 million after people realized that the reality TV show he said he was producing did not exist. His show was supposed to be about the reality of Homeland Security, and he even convinced conservative Republicans like Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to support the idea.

A reality TV show about Homeland Security -- isn't that a red flag right there? It's like having a reality show about ex-gay ministries or democracy in Khazakstan.

Meanwhile, you're going to see a lot of links to this article in The Nation about Blackwater Security and other mercenaries moving into New Orleans. But there's less there than meets the eye, too. Unanswered questions:

• Aside from "clearing out" someone's apartment and doing a lot of macho posturing, have the Blackwater men actually done anything?
• It's not illegal to hire private security guards to protect private property, is it? Does it really matter if they are, to name one example cited, Israeli?

By the way, the "rich hotelier" mentioned in that article, F. Patrick Quinn III, was the subject of an admiring profile in yesterday's NYT. That article, which was about Quinn's aggressive business tactics in the wake of the flood, didn't mention his security detail. Which is not to say they aren't really there -- it's just an interesting example of how two different reporters stress different things. One was writing a paranoid story about mercenaries, the other was writing a story about an aggressive businessman. Take note: the stories don't contradict each other. Taken together, they provide a more complete picture.

I don't mean to dis the Nation story so completely. It is valuable to note that Blackwater has close ties to the Christian right; it just isn't necessarily relevant to their work in New Orleans, unless a theocracy is being set up and nobody's noticing.