As showdowns go, this was a one-way Street

John Moorlach insists he wasn’t cowed. Still, I kept waiting for him to lay into Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street. And if things really got going, maybe challenge him to a duel in the Board of Supervisors chambers. Perhaps walk over and slap him with a white glove.

But, nope, Supervisor Moorlach just sat there last Tuesday like a mild-mannered gentleman, as if unaware that Street, his former brother-in-arms, had royally trashed him in recent days. He quizzed Street as he might any other department head or elected official -- with respect and civility. For a minute there, I thought he might ask him to lunch.

There’s no enmity like brother-on-brother. From the Book of Genesis down through Shakespeare and Steinbeck, writers have recognized the passions that erupt when brothers fight.

Street and Moorlach were the closest of political blood brothers. Their interlocked fates have been well chronicled -- how they sounded alarms about county Treasurer Bob Citron’s investment strategies in 1994, only to be ignored but later vindicated when the portfolio blew up and bankruptcy ensued. How Moorlach succeeded Citron, later appointed Street an interim assistant in 2006 and then endorsed him in that year’s election.

Then came the rift.

Street is the subject of local and federal investigations related to actions before and after he won election last year.

He hasn’t been charged with anything, but Moorlach has led the effort to strip him of his authority over the county’s $6 billion investment pool. In so doing, he has questioned Street’s fitness as a public official.

As the controversy unfolded, virtually all of the shots had come from Moorlach. Street had been left to fend them off.

Then came a Dec. 14 column he wrote for the Orange County Register. In it, Street unloaded on Moorlach and county employee’s union head Nick Berardino. “Speaking as one, these politicos manipulate and publicly misrepresent complex financial transactions in an effort to whip the public into a frenzy,” Street wrote. “There is no basis for this reckless demagoguery.”

Street’s essay followed criticism after his disclosure that some “structured investment vehicles,” or SIVs, in which he’d invested were on credit watch by a financial ratings agency. Street pointedly said that Moorlach went through much the same thing during his tenure and had even advocating buying some securities on credit watch.

After recounting their better days together, Street wrote, “Today, I wonder where that old friend, the man who held principle above politics, is hiding.” He went on to say, “I have lost my old friend John to the allure of ambition and the pragmatism of politics.”

In case the point hadn’t been made, Street concluded his essay by saying Moorlach and Berardino’s actions “transcend politics; they betray the public trust.”

Ouch, babe.

Later that same day, in a public forum explaining the SIV situation and his investment strategy, Street noted that managing a portfolio “is not for the faint of heart, and it is not for those who want to rest on past laurels, while pontificating like a Monday night quarterback.”

Talk about getting something off your chest.

That brought us to Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, in which I expected Moorlach to defend his honor, just four days after being torched.

Instead, he queried Street about his willingness to commit a significant percentage of the portfolio to SIVs when other entities were backing away from them. He also asked a couple of other inside-baseball questions that had, at most, a subtle bite to them.

Not a raised voice. Not a stinging barb. Nothing to match even remotely the smoke coming from Street a few days before.

I asked Moorlach if Street’s broadsides had scared him off. After saying no, he added, “I have this difficult problem of trying to surgically remove this guy without panicking the whole world.”

He said he could rebut Street’s published critiques, but in a larger sense took them as “deflections” of the real issues -- namely, the SIV controversy.

Still, Moorlach agreed he’d been “gentlemanly” in his discourse with Street. “I think we should put on a good public face,” Moorlach said. “We [county government] are working through this together. Why should we get into these spats? What’s professional about that?”

Moorlach still favors taking away Street’s investment authority, but he can’t find any allies on the board. The investigations perhaps will dictate the outcome of things, Moorlach said.

Moorlach acknowledges that Street has “some skills that are really incredible” but doesn’t think his old friend is “suited for public office as county treasurer.”

But when I note that he didn’t even use his time Tuesday to say he still favored stripping Street of investment powers or to defend himself against Street’s published remarks, Moorlach conceded the point. He got caught up in the moment and didn’t make it an issue, he says.

Far be it from me to say Street has him on the run.

Maybe Moorlach was feeling charitable as Christmas approaches.

After all, ‘tis the season to be jolly.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.