Fire a narcissist at the risk of firing up his imagination.
Pride remains one of the seven deadly sins, as much as we try to
cast the ancient vice as a modern virtue.
The Los Angeles Police Department didn’t fire Christopher Dorner
for falsifying a report against a fellow officer or for being an
all-around fruit loop. A grandiose figure always sees something
enormously sinister in his fall. So Dorner wrote in his manifesto —
merely penning one signifies egomania —of his fight to “reclaim my
name” and “the conspiracy to have me terminated.” That conspiracy,
ultimately ensnaring Los Angeles policemen, San Bernardino County
sheriffs, California Fish and Game wardens, and other law
enforcement agents, ended with Dorner’s termination in the
mountains on Tuesday.
There are worse fates than getting fired. Getting set on fire
surely ranks as one of them.
Pride comes before the fall. It did here in the form of Dorner’s
lengthy screed ironically extolling gun control and bestowing
affirmation upon celebrities who needed it, and wanted it, the
least. One gleans from reading the manifesto that Dorner worshipped
the idiots on the idiot box and yearned to become one of them.
“Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams,
Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and
Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite’s
lead,” Dorner advised. “I hold many of you in the same regard as
Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings.” They must be so
flattered.
“Ellen Degeneres, continue your excellent contribution to
entertaining America and bringing the human factor to
entertainment. You changed the perception of your gay community and
how we as Americans view the LGBT community. I congratulate you on
your success,” offered the mass murderer.
“Tebow, I really wanted to see you take charge of an offense
again and the game,” Dorner proclaimed. “You are not a good QB by
todays standards, but you are a great football player who knows how
to lead a team and WIN. You will be ‘Tebowing’ when you reach your
next team. I have faith in you.”
I. I. I.
¡Ay, ay, ay!
He watched too much television. He longed to be watched on
television. He made a break from on the couch to inside the
television in the easiest way possible. He killed—not informed or
entertained—other people.
If his imaginary friendships with celebrities didn’t convict Mr.
Dorner of delusions of self-importance, then decades-old vendettas
did. “Mr. ____, assistant principal,” he wrote. “Remember when you
lied to my mother and the police officer in your office about
stating that you never stated to me in a private conversation that
you know the theft suspect (____) stole my watch. Let me refresh
your memory.” About the watch clipped from your locker or your
bizarre personality tic?
The stale grudge against the vice-principal makes the five-year
grudge against the police seem fresh in comparison. Arrogance and
bitterness make familiar bedfellows. Presumptions of our own
infallibility obstruct forgiveness of the faults of others. Perfect
can’t empathize with imperfect. Not only couldn’t Christopher
Dorner let go, he felt compelled to write it all down so that his
grievances would live when he didn’t.
Actions, of course, speak louder than words. Taking lives in
revenge for losing your reputation requires unfathomable conceit.
It imagines one’s status as of greater value than another’s
existence. A deficit of self-awareness curses those with an excess
of self-esteem. People who stare in the mirror look long but never
deep.
When you’re such a huge fan of yourself, you can’t help but
inspire a few imitators. After gunning down a married couple
unknown to him, kidnapping two maids, and firing upon numerous
peace officers, Dorner inspired admirers to maintain that law
enforcement engaged in “cold-blooded murder” in taking their
cold-blooded-murdering hero dead rather than alive. “Apparently
burning people alive is now considered appropriate behavior for the
police,” one member of the fan club, despising the California cops
nearly as much as the Oxford comma, tweeted. “Judge, jury and
executioner.”
Alas, one determined to go out in a blaze of vainglory usually
does. Dorner’s cheering section decries that his body endured a few
minutes in a conflagration. What about his soul? Christopher,
rejecting himself as a “Christ bearer” in his manifesto, instead
imagined himself as the higher power. Dethroning God necessarily
precludes playing Him.
Christopher Dorner, victim of too much time genuflecting in
front of a television set, missed one important message: “Only you
can prevent forest fires.”
