Is Janet Nguyen trying on the good ol' boys' shoes?

In the good old days (remember the 1990s?) when Bob Dornan was an Orange County congressman, it was fun to knock him in print. It was like boxing with a kangaroo -- no matter how hard or often you hit him, you could never put him down. The raspy-voiced redhead not only seemed to enjoy the combat, but he was indefatigable.

And if indefatigable means colorful and sharp-witted, he was that, too.

To a lesser degree, it was the same with some other public figures. Supervisors and sheriffs, councilmen or clergymen -- from time to time, they all provided excellent column fodder. And since Orange County tended to be classic good-ol'-boy territory, the targets of scorn or scolding tended to be men.

Today, I'm not having nearly as much fun.

Newly minted Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen has told her attorney to return money that she solicited to help pay down the sizable debt she incurred from the post-election recount and trial that eventually handed her a three-vote victory. As The Times' Christian Berthelsen reported last week, those solicitations appear to violate county finance law that specifies that donations for legal expenses count as campaign contributions. As such, donors are limited to a maximum of $1,600. She told Berthelsen that three people, whom she didn't identify, gave more than the $1,600.

The donations were made out to a client trust fund of her attorney, Phillip Greer. Nguyen says Greer told her that was an acceptable way to raise money for the debt but later had second thoughts. At that point, Nguyen says, she told him to return the donations.

Greer told me Monday that Nguyen's version of events is correct.

I'm not thrilled to dive into this, because I met Nguyen on election night in February and enjoyed her company and that of her inner circle. I haven't been her advocate, other than to predict that first night -- even without knowing whether she'd won or lost the election -- that she had a bright future in politics.

I have to say, however, that her debt-reduction approach leaves much to be desired. For starters, directing money to a nondescript client fund sounds like a pretty obvious dodge. At minimum, it raises suspicions why Greer would first think it permissible but then have a change of heart.

From Nguyen's standpoint, even if she were merely accepting her lawyer's advice, a bell should have sounded about asking people for contributions in excess of normal campaign contributions. The fact that some apparently exceeded those levels only drives the point home deeper that an officeholder might be overly beholden to whoever ponied up big-time.