As 46 other states came to allow concealed handguns, it became just a question of when and how Kansas would follow. It turns out that when will be sometime before Jan. 1, 2007, and that how was through the Legislature’s votes this week to override Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ latest veto. The hope now becomes that the law, in practice, will contradict Sebelius’ assertion that “hidden weapons make it harder for law enforcement to do its job, and they make Kansas’ workplaces less safe.” Responsible permit holders can prove her wrong.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
President Bush has begun to be more realistic in talking about Iraq, admitting that it is difficult going but remaining confident about eventual success. But conservative columnist George Will thinks Bush needs to go further. “Accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive — that is, emphasize the dangers of failure and de-emphasize talk about Iraq’s becoming a democracy that ignites emulative transformation in the Middle East,” Will advised. On that last point, Will said: “Three years ago the administration had a theory: Democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable culture, they can also create such a culture. That theory has been a casualty of the war.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Even if you’re not a sports fan, a Shockers fan or a country music fan, you ought to listen to Eagle editorial cartoonist Richard Crowson’s send-up song “Shox Treatment.” As the song says, “Don’t take a brain surgeon; just takes a coach by the name of Turgeon.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Commentator Fareed Zakaria (in photo) supported military intervention in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, but he has been very critical of how it’s been executed. Yet he says in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, “for all my misgivings about the way the administration has handled this policy, I’ve never been able to join the antiwar crowd. Nor am I convinced that Iraq is a hopeless cause that should be abandoned.”
Why hasn’t he given up hope? Zakaria explains: “Partly it’s because I have been to Iraq, met the people who are engaged in the struggle to build their country and cannot bring myself to abandon them. Iraq has no Nelson Mandelas, but many of its leaders have shown remarkable patience, courage and statesmanship. . . . There is no doubt that the costs of the invasion have far outweighed the benefits. But in the long view of history, will that always be true? If, after all this chaos, a new and different kind of Iraqi politics emerges, it will make a difference in the region.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
I haven’t read Kevin Phillips’ new book, “American Theocracy,” so I can’t critique it. But it is getting a lot of attention, so I thought I should start a thread on it — or at least on the subjects it tackles. Phillips (in photo), who is a former Republican political strategist turned critic, focuses on three trends: the role of oil in American foreign and domestic policy; the intrusion of radical religion into politics and government; and the growth of public and personal debt. “If there is a single, if implicit, theme running through the three linked essays that form this book,” said a New York Times book review, “it is the failure of leaders to look beyond their own and the country’s immediate ambitions and desires so as to plan prudently for a darkening future.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
“I have yet to find anyone in the body look me in the eye and admit SB 461 is not a political game,” Rep. Ted Powers, R-Mulvane, said last week about the workers’ compensation reform bill that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed Tuesday. Powers’ contention was that the bill’s real purpose was to portray Sebelius as anti-business in the fall re-election season. “When we use our political wiles to make someone look bad and we use our voters as the pawns to do it,” Powers said, “this is diabolic.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Kansas House failed Wednesday to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the courts from telling legislators how much money to spend. Though lawmakers’ concern about the growing cost of education is serious, the main cause of the problem isn’t activist judges: it’s an activist Legislature, Congress and the State Board of Education that keep increasing demands on local schools.
In deciding whether the state was meeting its constitutional requirement to “suitably finance” public education, the Kansas Supreme Court didn’t legislate from the bench. Rather, it looked at what the state and federal lawmakers and the state board are requiring of schools. And two recent studies, both ordered and paid for by the Legislature, have concluded that the state is not providing schools with enough funds to meet those performance standards.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee