The civil lawsuit filed Thursday by Valerie and Joseph Wilson (in photo) against Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove faces some tough legal hurdles. The lawsuit charges that the Bush administration officials conspired to destroy Ms. Wilson’s career and punish Mr. Wilson by leaking to the press her identity as an undercover CIA agent. But a 1982 Supreme Court case established that federal officials are immune from lawsuits unless a reasonable person would believe they had violated “clearly established law,” The New York Times reported. Though many people believe that what happened was wrong, it’s still unclear whether it violated the law (Libby was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice, not for willfully disclosing the identity of a CIA agent).
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
My column today urges all Americans to see Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which offers overwhelming and conclusive scientific evidence that we’re in a world of hurt unless we take action — and soon — on global warming.
This issue underscores the point that it really does matter who we elect president. The contrast with President Bush is sad and striking. Bush hasn’t even grasped some basic facts about climate change.
Gore emerges in “Truth” as informed, passionate and inspiring — the kind of leader we deserve on this great moral challenge.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
With events in the Middle East increasingly looking like a multistate war, the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran unabated, and a tough midterm congressional election to worry about, will President Bush forgo his usual August-long vacation? “White House officials have decided too much is at stake this year for Bush to spend so much time on vacation,” reported the Associated Press. “He’ll spend some time at the ranch, but it will be less than previous summers and interrupted by more time on the road.” Last year’s ranch respite was rudely ended by Hurricane Katrina, or course, after being protested nonstop by Cindy Sheehan.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
We’d rather not print in The Eagle what M.T. Liggett calls the majority members of the Kansas State Board of Education. But we can include one of his signs about the board on this blog. The 75-year-old Liggett, Mullinville’s well-known sculptor of art from farm implements and scrap metal, is challenging incumbent Ken Willard of Hutchinson in the GOP primary for the state board. Liggett’s meeting Wednesday with the editorial board won’t be soon forgotten. He dislikes what the state board’s new science standards have done to Kansas’ image, and he would emphasize the arts in public schools (“If I had my way, every kid who graduated would speak a foreign language and play a stringed instrument”), do more for “supersmart kids,” and have grandmothers teach sex ed (“We’re making something complicated out of something so basic. Everybody got here the same way — even flowers”).
We asked him about his famous roadside commentary on U.S. 154 about then-President Bill Clinton, such as “Clinton Commander-in-Chief Yellow Beret Draft Ducker.” He clearly misses having the Clintons to kick around, in part because President Bush offers less material. “Can you do a piece of art on a straight line?” he asked.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The scary commonality of the worsening crises in the Middle East is Iran, notes The Washington Post. It supports Hamas and Hezbollah, the terrorist groups responsible for abducting three Israeli soldiers. Iran allegedly funds and arms some of the militias sowing death and destruction in Iraq. And it has yet to respond to an offered incentives package aimed at stopping its nuclear program — though Iran’s leader vowed Thursday not to give up the “right to exploit peaceful nuclear technology” or be “intimated by the arrogant uproar and propaganda today.”
All of this raises the stakes for President Bush at the Group of Eight summit this weekend and for the United Nations’ effort to pass a resolution on Iran next week. The next few days will be crucial if the Middle East has any hope of stability.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
