Making Dornans Enemies List

Voltaire said it best more than two centuries ago: "I have made but one prayer in my life: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."

The French philosopher, of course, never met Robert K. Dornan, so he did not know the full extent of ridiculousness.

In recent weeks, Orange County's infamous bitter, defeated ex-congressman stole a page from Dick Nixon's slimy campaign playbook: he created his own version of an enemies list, publishing 35 names on his campaign committee's official Web site (www.bobdornan.com).

Yours truly made Dornan's list. He calls me a "phone-sex pamphleteer" (in reference to the OC Weekly) and fingers me as one of the "Fraud Stonewallers" involved in his imaginary voter-fraud conspiracy.

I know why I'm on the list. He claims "East Coast Jews" sent me to OC to "take him out" and that I personally carried "wetbacks" across the Mexican border to vote against him in 1996. Plus, there have been all those unflattering Weekly articles about his violent spousal abuse, evasion of combat duty during the Korean War, and other sordid hypocrisies.

But how could any sane person publicly claim (as Dornan does) that his enemies include an entire school (Rancho Santiago College), court system (U.S. District Court), building (the White House), community group (the adult-education center in Orange), and federal agency (U.S. Department of Justice)?

Other enemy honorees included Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and her campaign chairman, Wylie Aitken; Republicans Mike Capizzi (district attorney), Wally Wade (assistant DA) and Rosalyn Lever (registrar of voters); the entire Democratic Party; four local unions; 1994 Democratic congressional candidate Mike Farber; and Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and its director, Nativo Lopez.

Noticeably absent from the enemies list is The Orange County Register and Dornan's once-hated-but-now-loved fish wrap, the Los Angeles Times.