One of GOP gubernatorial candidate and physician Jim Barnett’s most reported campaign lines — it’s been printed in The Eagle twice! — is: “We need more than a governor who will say, ‘Take two aspirin and call me when I’m president.’” But is that really an effective pitch — to remind voters that their current governor is so respected nationally that she gets mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate? And as a letter to the editor in today’s Opinion page points out, Barnett has said that, if elected, he would continue his medical practice (as he has while he has been a state senator). So do we need more than a governor who still wants to be a doctor?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It was nice to see former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, as he put it, get nailed to the wall. Dole was honored Tuesday by having his portrait displayed in the lobby outside the Senate chambers at the U.S. Capitol, one of fewer than 40 senators in our history to be so recognized. Dole wasn’t without faults, but, much more than today’s congressional leaders, he was a pragmatist who was concerned more with solving problems than scoring political points.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
THE ROLLING STONES TO OPEN WRANGLERS GAME AT LAWRENCE-DUMONT; ‘We Have Turned the Corner on Attendance,’ Says City Official
POLICE SHUT DOWN CITY HALL AS KNOWN CRACK HOUSE; Mayor’s, City Council’s Abusive, Erratic Behavior Seen In New Light
BOB DOLE’S OFFICIAL SENATE PORTRAIT SHOWS BRITNEY SPEARS SITTING ON HIS LAP; ‘Elizabeth Hasn’t Seen It Yet, But I Think It’s A Good Likeness,’ A Smiling Dole Tells Media
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Wichita education activist Cindy Duckett thinks social conservatives will retain their majority on the State Board of Education. “As we’ve seen before, I think conservative voters are motivated; moderates aren’t,” she told The Lawrence Journal-World. Why does she think that? “Where do conservatives gather? They gather in church,” she said. “They meet, they talk, they get motivated. Now, where do moderates meet? That’s just it. They don’t. They may go to church, but they’re not motivated by church.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The Democratic Leadership Council’s new initiative, which was partially unveiled Monday by Sen. Hillary Clinton, aims to help Democrats recapture Congress by recapturing middle class voters. The agenda includes providing additional support for college costs, creating a refundable tax credit to help provide the down payment on housing, and providing universal health care for children. The DLC would help offset the cost of these programs, The Washington Post reported, by eliminating corporate subsidies in the tax code, cutting federal contractors, and making a more aggressive effort to collect taxes.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Letting their upset over Iraq and support for Israel get the better of their judgment, some Democratic congressmen pressured House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to cancel Wednesday’s address to Congress by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (in photo), arguing in a letter that because of “mounting evidence that the Iraqi leadership’s goals are not in the best interests of the United States — nor the Middle East — Prime Minister Maliki’s address is inappropriate.” There also has been talk of a boycott of the speech. True, Maliki has condemned Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, a position at odds with U.S. policy. But surely Congress can set aside that disagreement long enough to welcome the duly elected prime minister of the new Iraq.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Signed in May, the Darfur Peace Agreement is not holding. Meanwhile, four of the Bush administration’s top five most important figures on Darfur, including Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, have resigned or left for other posts. New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, who won a Pulitzer Prize this year for his reporting on Darfur, has called for the president to appoint James Baker or Colin Powell special envoy on the issue. He has other substantive suggestions — such as a no-fly zone and help for the African Union force in Darfur. And “we need to press Europeans to become more involved and to remind Arabs that the slaughter of several hundred thousand Muslims in Darfur is every bit as worthy of protest as cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It sounds like the opening line of a political joke: Karl Rove and Madeleine Albright were called to jury duty. It was reality, though, in a courtroom at D.C. Superior Court Monday, where both were potential jurors for a cocaine distribution case. According to The Washington Post, the president’s top adviser was heard telling Albright that Omaha is considered a terrorist target (and therefore entitled to a good measure of anti-terror money) because it’s the site of crossing phone lines. He was dismissed for knowing the judge socially, leaving Albright in the pool.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s remarkable that after all the discussion of how the arena should boost the city’s dismal concert scene, the Rolling Stones have booked a concert not at any indoor venue but at Wichita State University’s Cessna Stadium. And on Oct. 2, when Wichita’s weather forecast could be, ahem, interesting. Still, anytime Wichita shows up on the big rock tour itineraries — even for a band perhaps best suited these days to promote AARP — it’s time to celebrate.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s not surprising that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has raised a lot more money than the top three GOP gubernatorial candidates, though the disparity is huge — she had almost $2.8 million available from Jan. 1 to July 20, compared with a combined total of $841,783 for Jim Barnett, Robin Jennison and Ken Canfield. That gap likely will close significantly after the Aug. 1 primary, as many GOP donors likely are waiting to see who will win. Still, the GOP should be worried about the fundraising edge, as it reflects Sebelius’ front-runner status and a lack of confidence that any of the GOP candidates can beat her.
Meanwhile, Democratic attorney general candidate Paul Morrison’s amazing fundraising success — he had nearly $1 million on hand from Jan. 1 to July 20, compared with $614,861 for Republican incumbent Phill Kline — reflects both a belief that the longtime Johnston County district attorney would make a good attorney general and the strong dislike that many donors have of Kline.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Kevin Brown, a deputy commissioner at the Internal Revenue Service, told The New York Times that he ordered the elimination of half of the jobs of the agency’s estate tax lawyers (who find an average of $2,200 of taxes owed for each hour that they work) because fewer people pay estate taxes now, due to legislation pushed through by the Bush administration. But others at the IRS see a different motive for the job cuts. Sharyn Phillips, a veteran IRS estate tax lawyer, claimed that the job cuts were a “back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
GOP gubernatorial hopeful Ken Canfield told The Salina Journal that if he becomes governor, he’ll send every married Kansas couple a congratulatory card on their first anniversary.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The GOP gubernatorial forum Saturday in Wichita sounded like a lovefest. “Our focus is Kathleen Sebelius, not my opponents at this table,” said state Sen. Jim Barnett of Emporia.
“We’re all talking a little bit different about the vision we have for Kansas, but we all think that anybody up here is better than Kathleen Sebelius,” said former Kansas House Speaker Robin Jennison of Healy.
But isn’t the time to talk party unity on Aug. 2? A united front doesn’t give Republicans much to vote on in the Aug. 1 primary. Kind of makes you nostalgic for the rough-and-tumble primaries of the past.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It was good to see the American Bar Association speak out about President Bush’s signing statements, used more than 800 times to disavow all or parts of laws he signs. Of most concern were his statements taking exception to laws barring torture of detainees and requiring the White House to report to Congress on anti-terrorism efforts. In a report released Monday, the ABA called for Congress to exercise more oversight and for courts to review the president’s signing statements. If unchecked, the presidential use of signing statements “raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy,” said ABA president Michael Greco.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s easy to sympathize with grieving families who erect makeshift roadside memorials — often small crosses and flowers –to lost loved ones killed in traffic accidents and other tragedies. But in practice, such memorials raise thorny public policy questions — how long should such displays be allowed to exist? Permanently? Does allowing them on public property open the door to other kinds of displays? Are they a distraction to drivers?
City and state officials have tended to look the other way on these questions, but some commonsense rules need to be put in place. Temporary displays aren’t so much the problem; the conflict arises when permanent, private displays are erected on public land such as highway medians and roadsides.
In Cheyenne Bottoms wildlife refuge, one family has erected on state property a private memorial including solar lights, a power outlet and a footbridge.
Where to draw the line? As some states have done, a good compromise might be to issue permits allowing short-term displays, with the understanding that permanent memorials belong in private cemeteries.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
It’s a shocking reminder that abuse is something that happens here in Wichita, in ordinary neighborhoods, sometimes just down the street: State social workers — responding to a tip — last week visited a south Wichita home and found two children in the basement, emaciated and starving. The two girls, 6 and 7 years old, said they ate when their father came home from business trips. "They looked like concentration-camp survivors," said Wichita police Lt. E.J. Bastian.
Police have removed the girls, and the stepmother has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse and endangerment and aggravated battery.
It was a tip that helped social workers and police uncover this horror. Wichitans should keep their eyes and ears open for signs of abuse, whether of children or adults, and report it promptly.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, who increasingly looks prescient for his refusal to vote for the Medicare prescription drug bill, noted this month in Clay Center that congressional politics has stalled the discussion about how to fix the drug program, which has been a nightmare for some pharmacists and citizens. Moran predicted Congress eventually would do “some tweaking” to the program. “We have to get through November before anyone is willing to admit there is a problem,” Moran told the Clay Center Dispatch. Funny how that works.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Wichitans have a chance to hear candidates for the Sedgwick County Commission address recycling and solid-waste issues at a public forum from 7 to 8:30 p.m. today at East Heights United Methodist Church, 4407 E. Douglas.
This is a good opportunity for the public to let candidates know they want changes in the county’s expensive and inefficient trash and recycling system.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding challenges to lethal injection executions is being watched closely in Missouri, where the state has been unable to find a single taker among the state’s almost 300 anesthesiologists willing to administer the deadly dose of chemicals.
It’s not encouraging that the surgeon who has administered the procedure for a decade admitted to a federal judge reviewing the state’s death penalty system that there was no protocol for the procedure and that he often “improvised” the dosage.
This reinforces the ethical dangers of getting doctors involved as executioners.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
“It’s like after Katrina, when the secretary of homeland security was saying all those people weren’t really stranded when we were all watching it on TV,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., noting how the public hasn’t bought the GOP attempt to blame the media for not reporting how well things are going in Iraq. As a result, many GOP lawmakers are making a strategy shift, The Washington Post reported, and are now saying that they don’t agree with every decision President Bush has made but that the choice is either staying and fighting or conceding defeat to a vicious enemy.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
FYI: The Eagle editorial board’s endorsements for the Aug. 1 primary are on our Opinion Web page (on the right side, below the cartoon). There are also short video excerpts from our interviews with GOP gubernatorial candidates Jim Barnett, Robin Jennison and Ken Canfield.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
A USA Today story focused largely on the presidential prospects of Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., pondered the question before social conservatives for 2008: “Support a candidate who has a good shot of winning but a short history on their core issues? Or back a true believer who faces a steep uphill fight?” (Brownback would be the latter.) “I love Sam Brownback,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “Sam Brownback is a great man, and Sam Brownback is a great senator.” Land added: “Whether he is a credible presidential candidate is up to Sam to prove.” First, though, Brownback will have to do something about the fact that, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll last month, 3 of 4 Americans either have never heard of him or have no opinion of him.
Here is the story’s money quote from Brownback, spoken to an Iowa crowd: “These are tough issues. This isn’t a ride in the park. This is about life. This is about marriage. This is about God in the public square.” He added: “We could win this thing, and we could have another 100 years as the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, and we could lose it and we could lose the culture.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Jim Skelton is still the new guy on the Wichita City Council, but to his credit — and the benefit of his underserved southeast Wichita district — he’s not giving ground to his colleagues without a fight or at least without asking lots of tough questions publicly. In recent days, Skelton has shown leadership in calling for a new committee to improve code enforcement and fight blight, in balking at east and west Wichita getting new fire stations before south Wichita does, and in questioning the cost of the airport terminal project and direction of the airline subsidy plan. Add Skelton’s voice to that of District 4’s Paul Gray, currently vice mayor, and south Wichita is at last getting strong representation at City Hall. Let’s hope these leaders inspire more south-siders to get involved, starting at the voting booth.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
