Homosexual Hit Man

Two years ago, Robert K. Dornan was an arrogant (“Nobody can beat me. Nobody”) nine-term congressman, and I was writing a pre-election expos detailing his long list of hypocrisies. He was most worried that we would reveal that—far from his image as a fearless, gung-ho military enthusiast—he had avoided combat to attend drama classes. So determined was Dornan to kill the article that he threatened to out me as a closeted gay man (a very funny impossibility). We ran the story—one we are told was hand-delivered throughout the 46th Congressional District near election day—and Dornan lost.

Since then, the former congressman has accused me of being, among other things, a male prostitute, a drug dealer and, generically, a felon. Much of the time, he hyphenates his slander: prostitute-drug-dealing-felon, etc. He also claimed that “East Coast Jews” sent me to California with orders to take him out; that I personally carried “wetbacks” across the Mex ican border to vote against him in 1996; and that I was a top-secret courier between his spoiler, Loretta Sanchez, and the “massive criminal conspiracy” supposedly plotting his ouster.

When he isn't calling me names, he's threatening to assault me, demanding that I be fired, sending one of his sons to heckle me at speaking engagements, or abusing congressional power by subpoenaing me.

A month ago, Dornan—who has had Sanchez under surveillance for months—had this to say on OCN's Prime Story: “[Sanchez] has no family—never will—and a marriage of convenience. . . . She's not a churchgoing Catholic, folks.”

I followed up with a story questioning how a man who court records indicate beat his wife for at least 16 years, who avoided combat duty when his country needed him, who steals handicapped parking spaces, and who has made a political career out of character assassination could attack the private lives of others.

The week following that article, Dornan appeared again on OCN and went ballistic at the mere mention of my name. Suddenly, I was not just a prostitute-drug-dealing-felon, but a “homosexual hit man.” (Amused friends say they are designing a cap with that inscription.) The funniest parts were when he claimed that I am attracted to, as he says, his handsomeness (so that's why he's always winking at me at public events) and—even more absurd—that the two of us are so close that we would share scuttlebutt about Sanchez.

The following is a transcript of that portion of Dornan's March 1 diatribe on OCN. Suffering through his garrulous mania were host Leslie Leyton and guest Jim Toledano, former chairman of the Orange County Demo cratic Party.

TOLEDANO: Bob, you should read Scott Moxley in the OC Weekly when it's not about you.

DORNAN: Wait a minute, the homosexual paper?

TOLEDANO: When it's not about you.

DORNAN: You're talking about R. Scott Moxley, the homosexual R. Scott Moxley.

TOLEDANO: Scott Moxley took a piece out of Loretta Sanchez twice. You read those.

DORNAN: In kind of a bitchy homosexual way? Scott Moxley is the one who told me she [Sanchez] was having an affair with Tom Daly [Mayor of Anaheim].

TOLEDANO: Wait, wait . . .

DORNAN: Now he twists it onto my son.

TOLEDANO: Wait, wait . . .

DORNAN: That came out of Scott Moxley's mouth. Don't quote that scabrous, scandalous, calumny-spreading homosexual tool of Bill [sic] Swaim.

TOLEDANO: But you believe him.

DORNAN: No. I don't believe him.

LEYTON: I can't wait to talk about the issues.

DORNAN: Scott Moxley told my son her [Sanchez's] husband was a homosexual. I don't know whether to believe Scott. I find him scummy and scabrous. So I don't believe anything he says.

TOLEDANO: Wait . . .

DORNAN: Why don't you go talk to Scott Moxley about Stephen S. Brixey III, whom my son arrested for destroying 600 of our signs.

TOLEDANO: Huh?

DORNAN: Why don't you, uh, how could you bring up that homosexual Scott Moxley—who says she is having an affair with, with Tom Daly. Broke up his marriage in '94. Broke it up in '96 and that her husband is in a marriage of convenience and that he is a homosexual. That's R. Scott Moxley for you.

TOLEDANO: But are you saying that he said these terrible lies about Sanchez?

DORNAN: I don't know if they are lies or true.

TOLEDANO: But you're repeating them.

DORNAN: I'm repeating them to you because you dared to quote him as a reliable source on that she [Sanchez] never voted.

TOLEDANO: [unsuccessfully tries to speak]

DORNAN: Oh, and by the way, he missed that.

TOLEDANO: He . . .

DORNAN: That's one thing he missed on.

TOLEDANO: You are repeating them to the entire television audience. This is not a private conversation between the two of us.

DORNAN [in full animation]: I'm talking about R. Scott Moxley, the homosexual hit man that [sic] has been assigned to me personally for three years. That [sic] told my son, “I've lived your father's life since he was a handsome young actor in the, uh, 19, uh, 60s.”

LEYTON: Does that scare you, Bob?

TOLEDANO: Was that a compliment?

DORNAN: Have you seen the cover story in the OC Weekly? The bondage-and-discipline guy with the golf ball in his mouth and all the black leather on?

LEYTON: Maybe they were talking about [OC Congressman Dana] Rohrabacher, who was sitting right there.

DORNAN: No, no—I know. That was up here [at OCN studios]. But that was not supposed to be Rohrabacher.

LEYTON: Kind of looked like him, didn't it?

DORNAN: That paper is Satan's instrument. That is an evil paper spreading infected bodily fluids all over this county and costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars in AIDS care from young men dying in the prime of life.

LEYTON: Okay. I know we're all having a great time. I hate to change the subject but . . .

DORNAN: Loretta, call Scott Moxley.

LEYTON: Can't you tell me what the issues are in your district?