The Din Dies--and Silence Speaks Loudly for Dornan

Bob Dornan is stripped bare. The red beard came off some time ago. Now, everything else--his credibility, his legacy--lies in a heap at his feet, leaving us to take a long look at the denuded former congressman.

It is not a pretty sight.

One would hope that, caught in such an embarrassing posture, he would simply pick up his things and exit stage right. Don’t bet on it. For a man with such a grandiose sense of his own worth, Bob Dornan apparently has a limitless capacity to belittle himself.

It began with the name-calling and blustery physicality that dotted his nine-term career in the House. Needing a bigger stage for his act, he ran for president in 1996 in a singularly comic exercise that found him trailing in some GOP primaries to people like Alan Keyes.

The coup de grace, though, was losing his Orange County congressional seat in 1996 to Loretta Sanchez, a failed city council candidate and political nonentity. No one with Dornan’s ego could put up with that. Bob Dornan, presidential candidate, concede a hometown election to Loretta Sanchez?

Not a chance. So, Dornan made a calculated choice to keep himself in the public eye. If claiming that election fraud cost him his seat meant fanning some ethnic hostilities about corrupt Mexican politics being imported into Orange County, well, that was a price Dornan was willing to pay.

That brings us to today, the end point of the charges and, in a just world, Dornan’s political career. For after assuring everyone for lo these 18 months that he would prove his charges, Dornan had to accept a Republican-led congressional task force’s decision that it couldn’t prove “there were enough illegal votes to vacate the seat or overturn the election.”

That doesn’t mean, Michigan Rep. Vern Ehlers said, that illegal votes were not cast in the Dornan-Sanchez race. It just means that no one could prove the guts of Dornan’s charges, which is what the other side said all along.

As such, Ehlers said, House Republicans will dismiss Dornan’s election challenge.

What price will Dornan pay for the tumult he has created?

For an honest broker, the loss of face would be penalty enough. A respectable public official might feel chastened at causing all this ruckus and coming up empty, both with the House inquiry led by his own party and by a no-indictment decision by the Orange County Grand Jury.

Dornan, however, isn’t programmed to feel shame. To him, it’s all about shouting down an opponent and making sure he’s heard above the din. Now, there is no din. Just a loud silence, if you will--a silence that speaks volumes about Dornan’s credibility.

It’s not just that Dornan has been wrong all these months about what he could prove. Being wrong in politics is not shameful. Sometimes, it can be heroic.

There’s not even a whiff of heroism here. Both Republicans and Democrats alike conceded that some people may have voted illegally, even if unwittingly. The issue Dornan raised was whether an orchestrated effort occurred to steal the election.

His ultimate intent, now clarified by the essential unprovability of his charge, was to make sure we didn’t forget him. His charges were designed not to help Orange County elections but to help Bob Dornan come to grips with the jolt of an election-night upset.

That’s why he has no credibility left to offer us.

Just wait, Dornan kept saying. Just wait.

The wait is over. The findings, replete with all the ill will caused and reputations assaulted, make Dornan’s lifetime of name-calling and empty perorations look all the more insipid, all the more calculated not to make a point of substance but to say, ‘Hey, look at me!”

Well, we’re all looking now.

What we see is someone who had a chance to go out with a certain amount of style in 1996. He chose not to.

Now, who knows what he’ll do.

A select crop of the right-wingers that Dornan hangs with never seem to thrive as much as after they’ve embarrassed themselves. G. Gordon Liddy and Ollie North secured radio talk shows, somehow convincing people they’re soldiers in a culture war that only they and their followers even know is being fought.

Dornan could go that route. Incredibly, he’s been on TV in recent days commenting on President Clinton’s alleged personal failings.

Or, Dornan could be at a point in his life where he’s at peace with losing the Sanchez race. Early reports suggested as much, with Dornan saying that he wouldn’t be running in this year’s Republican primary. Later, he apparently changed his mind.

That didn’t surprise me. Bob Dornan needs this too much. He needs to be talked about and vilified and admired. He probably has envied no one as much in these last few days as President Clinton. He’s seen the president get knocked down, then get back up. You can bet Dornan would love to do the same.

Bob Dornan, not necessarily gone.

Just finished.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com