It seems Americans can agree on one thing — that they deserve to know the details of Jack Abramoff’s White House meetings. A new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration should come clean about the contacts. And that includes 2 in 3 Republicans and 8 in 10 Democrats. It’s nice to know that members of both parties recognize the need to know what the crooked lobbyist was up to at the White House.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, the chairman of the Sedgwick County legislative delegation, has a commentary on today’s Opinion pages defending anti-gaming lawmakers such as himself who took campaign money for casinos. He argues that The Eagle oversimplified this issue, and that our editorial last week “reinforced the uninformed opinion of some that all politicians are crooks and that their participation in the political process has no real value.”
Baloney. The editorial said “there’s no evidence that any of these lawmakers changed their position on gaming, either for or against, because of the contributions.” And the issue really is simple. Area lawmakers have preached about the evils of gaming and the need to keep gaming money out of politics, yet they took campaign donations from northeast Kansas casinos that don’t want the competition of a Sedgwick County casino. What’s more, 19 of these lawmakers, including Journey, bullied the Sedgwick County Commission into not letting the public have its say on expanded gaming through a nonbinding vote.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
A lot of ink is spent discussing the GOP divide between moderates and conservatives, as an Eagle news article did Friday. The growing divide within the Democratic Party between liberals and centrists is also noteworthy but gets much less attention. The war in Iraq exposed some of this division, with many in the liberal base wanting aggressive opposition to President Bush and a withdrawal from Iraq, while centrists such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and others cautioned against appearing weak on defense and security. The Samuel Alito confirmation is another sharp divide. Liberal groups are thrilled with the calls of Sens. John Kerry and Ted Kennedy for a filibuster, The Washington Post reported. But centrists see that as a quixotic fight that will make Democrats appear as obstructionists.
It’s a similar debate within both parties. Moderates argue that to win big elections and to govern, you need to move to the middle. But the liberal and conservative bases respond: What’s the point of getting elected if you have to water down your principles?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Members of Congress are arguing along party lines about whether the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into the warrantless wiretapping constitute enough of a congressional inquiry, or whether other panels should get into the act. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who already had planned for his Senate Intelligence Committee to consider the spying, let his understandable frustration with Democrats show last week in a letter that noted, according to The New York Times: “I think we can all agree that intelligence issues, especially in the middle of a war, should not be used as fodder for political advantage. Doing so is unnecessary, unwise and potentially dangerous.” Congress needs to thoroughly and honestly examine whether the Bush administration broke the law by conducting wiretaps of U.S. citizens without a court warrant. But can’t everybody on Capitol Hill and the White House rise above politics and fight the war on terrorism together?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The nation gained its 34th state on Jan. 29, 1861, officially putting our home on the range on the map. Located at what would become the heart of the United States, Kansas can seem at the center of many defining American issues, too — from the bloody struggle over slavery and bar-splintering crusade against liquor to the more contemporary fights over abortion and evolution. “To the stars through difficulties” still fits.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
WICHITA LEGISLATIVE DELEGATION OFFERS IDEAS FOR VOTERS WANTING TO BUY LUNCH ACCESS; Options Include Banquet, Buffet and Express Drive-through
BIN LADEN, AL-ZARHAWI ADMIT TO ‘BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN’ RELATIONSHIP; ‘It Gets Lonely Hiding in the Hills,’ Says Terror Chief in Latest Tape
MINNESOTA DEVELOPERS BUY CITY HALL; Underused Building Will Be Another Loft Conversion
Posted by Randy Scholfield
