SAN DIEGO — The morning commute is underway and radio personalities Joe Bauer and Mac Hudson, faithful barometers of the local zeitgeist, are gagging it up about Bruce Henderson, the designated villain in the red-hot controversy that threatens to drive the Super Bowl and the Chargers out of town.
Bauer: "Let's talk about how proud Bruce Henderson must be today because the Holiday Bowl may skip San Diego as well. Good work, Bruce."
Hudson, referring to San Diego's judicial scandal: "They sentenced two ex-judges and a lawyer yesterday because of Henderson."
Sportscaster Ted Leitner: "That's right. That's right. Right."
Hudson: "And Pamela Harriman died. Bruce Henderson."
Bauer: "Bruce, Bruce, Bruce."
Bruce, indeed.
Civic forces favoring the expansion of San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium have spent considerable time lampooning and blaming Henderson, 53, the former city councilman and dedicated whistle-blower who started the referendum drive aimed at halting the expansion project until a public vote can be held.
"Bruce Henderson has been vilified more than any other person I've ever seen in San Diego politics," protests Henderson's lawyer, Robert Ottilie, who ran against Henderson for City Council in 1987.
Ottilie and co-counsel Michael Aguirre are preparing for a Feb. 20 hearing at which a judge will consider Henderson's request to halt construction on the stadium in mid-bulldoze. Opposing them will be the combined legal muscle of the city attorney's office, the National Football League and one of the city's blue-chip law firms.
Meanwhile, Bruce-bashing has become a minor sport.
The editorial page of the San Diego Union-Tribune suggested that Henderson move away. An editorial cartoon in the same newspaper had Henderson as Lucy whisking the football away from Charlie Brown.
A cartoon in the San Diego Reader showed him as a troll living under a bridge. The caption: "Defeated lawyers don't go away. They stick around to clog the way. Bruce Henderson. Thrice defeated. Not shy."
Steve Cushman, car dealer and board chairman of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, snorts that Henderson is nothing more than an "obstructionist force."
Mayor Susan Golding scolded Henderson publicly and said that if the Chargers, Padres and Super Bowl flee San Diego because the stadium is a mess, it will be Henderson's fault and not hers or the City Council's.
