Loose-Lipped Cannon

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Costa Mesa) is clarifying his remarks for the Congressional Record--a euphemism for rewriting history. But he cannot erase the disgust that we felt in hearing him mouth the words “disloyal, betraying little Jew” into the microphone in the well of the House of Representatives last week.

Dornan is a throwback to the days when members of Congress carried heavy canes to bash people they disagreed with. That he has failed to cause a breakdown in civility that extends beyond his own put-’em-up personality can be considered only dumb luck.

What pushed him to the edge of hysteria this time was a decision by the ABC television network to let Vladimir Posner, who works for Radio Moscow, offer a long and uninterrupted rebuttal to President Reagan’s televised appeal for support for his defense budget last Thursday. It was Posner whom Dornan was describing as a “little Jew.” ABC said later that it was a mistake to let Posner run on unchallenged, but no mistake in judgment, no provocation would produce that kind of language from anyone who belonged in or near Congress.

This is not the first time that Dornan has let fly remarks that were--properly, we think--taken as anti-Semitic, remarks not to be excused by his apology for “inelegant phrasing.” Nor is he choosy about whom he offends. During last year’s Orange County campaign, according to a Catholic priest, he “stormed” into a parish rectory where he denounced some unidentified bishops as communists.

Dornan describes himself as a conservative--a label that makes real conservatives cringe. He is actually a loose-lipped cannon whose own GOP colleagues once eased him out of office by eliminating his district. Unfortunately, Orange County gave him another chance--a mistake in judgment on a par with that of the ABC television network, but one that can be corrected in November.