Newsletter Authors Get Taste of Their Own Caustic Ink : Politics: Illuminaire’s attack on Assemblyman Ferguson prompts mock edition of conservative young Republican staffers’ publication lampooning them.

Orange County’s conservative Republicans continue to show signs that they aren’t getting along very well.

Call the latest skirmish the Battle of the Dueling Pens.

It began a few weeks ago in the latest issue of Illuminaire--the cheeky conservative newsletter produced by several staffers of the Orange County legislative delegation.

Among the newsletter’s articles was one about Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) that was headlined: “Gil: A Portrait of Political Alzheimer’s.”

Ferguson’s defenders apparently fired back, producing and mailing last week a bogus edition of Illuminaire.

It looked like the real thing, but clearly it was not.

For one thing, the lead article apologized for insulting Ferguson and others who were attacked in the February-March edition of the bimonthly newsletter.

“We work for the Tonya Hardings of the political ice rink and the Lorena Bobbitts of painful political sex,” the fake newsletter said.

Another article said: “It’s true that most everything we said was either a lie, taken out of context or embroidered. It’s tough to take on the toughest, crustiest conservative in the Legislature and make him look like a lib, but we sure did our best. We used the Harding pipe and the Bobbitt knife.”

The fake newsletter attempted to mimic the irreverent style that the real Illuminaire is known for. But Matthew Cunningham, Illuminaire’s co-senior editor and an aide to state Sen. John Lewis (R-Orange), said the counterfeit version didn’t even succeed at doing that.

“Their vocabulary is mediocre, the writing style is middling, and they can’t even spell (Democratic gubernatorial candidate) Kathleen Brown’s name correctly. It’s pathetic,” Cunningham said Tuesday.

The real Illuminaire is a product of the Conservative Round Table of Orange County, a group of young Republicans who are devoted to conservative causes.

Its recent issue questioned the conservative credentials of Rep. Michael Huffington (R-Santa Barbara), who is seeking his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Another frequent Illuminaire target is Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder.

Cunningham said he suspects that Ferguson’s staffers--but not the assemblyman--produced the fake Illuminaire.

“God, no,” Ferguson responded Tuesday. “I just got one in the mail, both at home and in the office. . . . I don’t know who did it.”

Ferguson said that one of Cunningham’s cohorts recently confided to him that he had been “very embarrassed” by the attack on the assemblyman in the last newsletter and would “try to set the record straight” in the next issue. Ferguson did not say who that was.

The sponsors of Illuminaire “are kind of vicious people,” Ferguson said. “They really attack.”