Suck-ers!

A new TV drama about the Department of Homeland Security and the brave men and women who defend America against threat...

or maybe not:

Joseph Medawar's television show about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was supposed to be a drama with a difference, telling authentic tales of the war on terrorism with cooperation from top national security authorities, including President George W. Bush.

[snip]

Over the past two years, Bush, Cox and other officials who had at most passing contact with Medawar's program wound up lending unintended credibility to a television project that federal prosecutors now call a multimillion-dollar scam.

Trading on Hollywood glamour and Washington power, Medawar, a Los Angeles-based producer of a half-dozen low-budget feature films, collected $5.5 million since 2003 from investors in ``DHS: The Series,'' prosecutors say. Television viewers have never seen a single episode.

Evidently Medawar sold this series to a number of Christian investors as well:

Los Angeles-based Steeple, whose logo resembles a church tower, raised much of its funding from churchgoers drawn to Medawar's promise that the ``DHS'' program's story lines would reinforce Christian values, prosecutors say.

[snip]

Medawar was promoting the ``DHS'' series while conservative Christians were voicing support for Homeland Security efforts to fight terrorism and defending the war in Iraq.

And on the supposed D.H.S. series site, we get this thrilling summary of the show and its mission:

D.H.S. The Series is a one hour drama about an Executive Action Group or EAG within the Department of Homeland Security. Behind the politics, the press and the debate over how homeland security should be handled are the men and women who risk their lives every day to keep us safe. At the spearhead is the EAG who use whatever necessary to defend their homeland. The full extent of government and military resources at their fingertips, this team led by Agent Jack Callahan and Andrea Bacall, must identify, track and eliminate any potential danger.

Another SEEEKRIT Agency On A Mission From God Doing Whatever It Must To Defend The Country. Oh, joy. Somehow, coming on the heels of the revelations about the FBI/Pentagon/NSA spying on American citizens, that hardly sounds reassuring. Perhaps it's better the show never did get made, after all.