POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:Riled up over conviction

A policy that prevents Border Patrol agents from shooting at suspects unless they are directly threatened with a weapon is “about as nonsensical as anything I’ve ever seen in my 30 or 40 years of public awareness,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach said last week.

Rohrabacher has been calling on President Bush to pardon two Border Patrol agents who were convicted earlier this year after shooting a drug smuggler who had illegally entered the country with a van full of marijuana.

He upped the ante last week, holding a news conference in Santa Ana with one of the agents, the same day he received a letter from federal officials suggesting the agents apply for a pardon.

The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, were sentenced in October for assault with a deadly weapon, a civil rights violation and other charges.

The incident, which has been alternately described as shooting a man in the buttocks as he ran away and subduing a potentially armed criminal who disobeyed law enforcement, was a controversial one, but Rohrabacher is not one to shy away from controversy.

He said he jumped into the issue because the regulations that control Border Patrol agents’ behavior affect how they can do their jobs, and this case didn’t make sense to him.

“This is about the stupidest, most nonsensical policy that I’ve ever seen,” he said. “How can you say to the Border Patrol that they can’t use their weapons unless somebody is about to shoot them? … Their only recourse will be to wrestle someone to the ground. Why would someone stop if he [the agent] can’t use his weapon?”

Rohrabacher said since the drug smuggler escaped at the time, the only evidence that he wasn’t armed is his word, and he had thrown one of the agents to the ground as they chased him.

The congressman planned to apply for pardons for the agents, and he said if Bush doesn’t approve them, he will have shown himself to be “a heartless person and someone who has basically … stupid policies.”

The agents are set to begin serving prison terms in January.

SEEING RED ON MAGAZINE RACKS

Orange County’s latest political magazine, Red County, came out this month. It’s a glossy 66 pages with Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on the cover and has articles on the Beachcomber restaurant at Crystal Cove State Park and the county’s political blogs.

Also in the first issue is an article by Newport Beach City Councilman Keith Curry about the city’s adoption of a Camp Pendleton Marine battalion and his pending proposal for a monument to members of the unit who died in Iraq.

The magazine was sent to 50,000 Orange County homeowners with annual incomes above $100,000, a list that includes a number of Newport Beach residents. Republicans and Democrats received it, but GOP voters are most likely to want to see more of Red County, editor Scott Graves said Wednesday.

The magazine will print every other month, with the next issue out in February. Graves is working on making it bigger and fine-tuning the design and content with the eventual goal of rolling out more than a dozen more magazines in places with demographics like Orange County’s.

But Red County’s online plans are even more ambitious. The fledgling magazine acquired OC Blog, a haven for local political junkies, and Graves said plans for at least 50 more localized blogs around the country are in the works.

“What we intend to do is really build a brand called Red County that’s for folks that find themselves in the center-right,” he said. “The blog will be used as a marketing vehicle for the magazine, but both of them are independent.”

For information on Red County magazine, visit www.redcounty.com.

JWA EXPANSION NEWS IS ONLINE

John Wayne Airport officials on Wednesday announced a new Web page for updates on the $512 million in upgrades and expansion planned for the airport over the next five years. The expansion is allowed by the settlement agreement between the airport, the city of Newport Beach and other parties.

The work will include adding a new terminal with six gates and 2,500 more parking spaces. It will be financed largely by a $4.50 fee passengers are charged when they fly out of John Wayne Airport.

The Web page, at www.ocair.com/improvements, will explain the schedule of improvements, the financing plan and other aspects of the project.