For those familiar with robert dornan’s hilariously ironic political-campaign slogans (including “Faith. Family. Freedom.”), add a new one for this year’s Republican primary battle to unseat first-term Democratic Representative Loretta Sanchez in November: “No Fear.”
It is doubly ironic that Dornan—who turned 65 on April 3—would swipe the name of a popular street-wear line. The bitter, defeated ex-congressman demonstrated indubitable fear when he avoided combat during the Korean War by enrolling in a private LA school to study drama. Rewriting history, he nevertheless proudly calls himself a “hero” and a “shit-hot fighter pilot.” Perhaps like Ronald Reagan, Dornan has confused playing the role of a battle-scarred veteran (in such Ed Wood-grade B movies as The Starfighters and To the Shores of Hell) with the real thing.
A more likely scenario for unveiling the new slogan is that the cutthroat New York City native is signaling Sanchez and key GOP primary opponent Lisa Hughes that he plans to fight dirty once again. That, of course, would not be a surprising revelation. The Dornan camp—famous for bigoted remarks like “lesbian spear chucker”—started this season by publicly labeling the congresswoman a “communist-backed twit” and her husband a “fagot” [sic]. The only question is: How low will Dornan sink in his struggling 15th political campaign?
An unofficial but Dornan-backed Web site suggests the race to win the 46th Congres sional District may become the ugliest female-bashing campaign in the nation this year. Run by Orange County resident Glen Christiansen (a man Dornan calls “the loyalest of the loyal”), the Web site (www.amphibiouszone.com) recently carried postings that ignored Dornan’s three male opponents to simultaneously smear the female candidates. Even though the similarities between Sanchez (who tends to vote with moderate to liberal Democrats) and Hughes (a solid conservative with major GOP endorsements) end with gender, Dornan has cynically tagged the two “Soul Sisters.”
Strong, unintimidated women seem to spark Dornan’s wrath. Text on the Web site ridiculously claims the two women “are very much alike,” share mentors “Mao [erroneously spelled “Mau”], Lenin, Hitler and Clinton,” and that “both have attended Planned Parenthood’s seminar on ‘How to kill babies for fun and profit!'” The Dornan camp also called Sanchez an “opportunistic woman” and said that “Lisa plans to pass out nicotine patches to small children and have an abortion on demand.” Accom pany ing the lies is a photo of Sanchez that dissolves into a photo of Hughes.
“It is no wonder that Sanchez won in 1996. Dornan has been such an embarrassment to this district,” Hughes recently told the Weekly. “He’s getting tackier and tackier as support for my campaign grows.”
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.