[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]

Many-term Congressman Dana Rohrabacher was on KFI-AM 640's John and Ken Show yesterday to piss on the memory of Tam Tran, a Garden Grove resident and tireless advocate for undocumented college students like herself who tragically passed away a couple of weeks ago. Rohrabacher and JohnKen were incensed that Tran's alma mater, Santa Ana College, is setting up a scholarship in Tran's name specifically for undocumented college students, with Rohrabacher even threatening to go after the community college's federal funds for such an affront.

Rohrabacer: Has done less to serve his country than illegals

Dana's just jealous because illegals in Orange County have done much better things to better humanity than he can ever hope to contribute. Below are just five such individuals, each picked because their accomplishments specifically rebuke an attribute that Dana pretends to exemplify.

*Jose Angel Garibay: First Orange County casualty of the Iraq War. Received his citizenship only upon burial. Dana, on the other hand, never bothered with the armed services in his life.

*Tam Tran: Rohrabacher spent the Vietnam War in college and thus pretends to be an intellectual, boasting about a degree in history from Long Beach St. and a master's in American studies from USC. Anyone can get the former, and the latter has about as much academic heft as a degree from Corinthian Colleges--and he attended during the 1970s, when USC was still Orange County's version of Animal House (remember that there exists a picture of longtime Congressman Christopher Cox running around naked on campus), except with more lax admission standards. Tran, on the other hand, received a bachelor's in English from UCLA, and was studying for her doctorate in American civilization from Brown University--and if you think the latter is the least of the Ivies, also note Tran was accepted to Yale.

*El Piolín: One day, I will dive into the Orange County Register microfilm collection at UC Irvine and scan through the era where Dana was an editorial writer. He fancies himself some sort of wordsmith, also writing screenplays over the years. But his public pronouncements did little to influence popular opinion--indeed, if you want to play the law of coincidences, the Orange County GOP experienced its weakest moments in the county during the late 1970s, when Rohrabacher was penning pieces for the Reg. He could only hope to have one-sixth of the public influence of El Piolín, morning deejay on KSCA-FM 101.9 and one of the most-heard radio hosts in the country, regardless of language.

*Jose Vargas: Dana has also masqueraded as a rule-of-law type of guy over the years, but never spent one day on the streets fighting crime. Conversely, Vargas is an Orange County police legend, a man who helped teach wabs to trust law enforcement and is the father of more than a few excellent cops. Vargas and his sons--I do believe Rohrabacher would refer to these men in blue as anchor babies--took down cholos, broke up drug rings, and served their communities well. Rohrbacher, on the other hand, partied with the Taliban, smoked marijuana, and yells at his more-liberal constituents.

*Alfonso Marquez: Marquez is better-known as a baseball umpire, but the former Fullerton resident is more-beloved for his charity work. The next time "charity" and "Rohrabacher" will be mentioned in the same sentence is, well, never.

E-mail: GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM