The Johnson County Republican Party just thumbed its nose at voters by installing outgoing Attorney General Phill Kline as the county’s new district attorney.
It’s an interesting way to build party support — prop up a demonstrably unpopular politician overwhelmingly rejected by voters.
As Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said of a possible Kline pick, “I don’t think they’re listening very carefully” to voters, who clearly sent the message in the last election that they don’t like what Kline’s selling. A mere 35 percent of Johnson Countians voted for Kline in the attorney general race.
This is a partisan political appointment based on far-right ideology, not qualifications, which Kline abundantly lacks for this prosecutorial job.
The post will allow Kline to continue his campaign against an Overland Park abortion clinic — and provide a platform for future face time on Bill O’Reilly’s show.
But Republicans pursue activism-as-usual at their own risk. Johnson County Democrats have to like their chances against Kline in 2008.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Wichita lighted its Christmas tree last week on Kennedy Plaza in front of Century II without any shots being fired in the so-called “war on Christmas,” thank goodness. After being criticized in 2004 for calling it “the community tree,” city officials since have been calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree. The dropping of pretense made sense, given that Wichita’s municipal Christmas tree tradition dates back to 1914.
So far in 2006, the worst flap of this kind may be at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where a rabbi’s request that a menorah be displayed along with 14 Christmas trees prompted airport officials not to add the menorah but to take down the trees. The airport’s trees — plastic trees — are back in place, the rabbi having assured officials that he would not sue. “A key element in moving forward will be to work with the rabbi and other members of the community to develop a plan for next year’s holiday decorations at the airport,” said a statement released by the Port of Seattle.
Sounds like a plan. What’s sad is when these clashes over what symbols and words to use to celebrate the season end up tainting the season itself.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The November election was as much a mandate for a cleaner Congress as for a smarter strategy in Iraq, right? If so, what to make of Friday’s tepid official response by the House ethics committee to the Mark Foley e-mail scandal? Or Saturday’s victory in a runoff election by embattled Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., the guy alleged to have had $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer?
The ethics panel concluded that House leaders broke no rules but were negligent in dealing with complaints about then-Rep. Foley’s sexually explicit e-mails to former male pages. The inquiry didn’t even produce a reprimand — though voters did issue one last month. And the committee’s few suggestions for improving the page program don’t restore trust.
Then Saturday, Jefferson easily won his runoff, after winning endorsements from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and other prominent politicians. True, he has yet to be charged with a crime related to the bribery case — and why not? — but his political survival does not serve House Democrats’ promises of an ethical Congress. And as New Orleans City Council member Oliver Thomas said: “People are watching this election all around the country, and I can only imagine what they are thinking. It will be very difficult to go back to them and ask them to trust us with the money we need here.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan contrasted American administrations of the past to the current one during his speech Monday at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., the New York Times reported. Annan, who is to step down on Dec. 31, said the United States was “in the vanguard of the global human rights movement” but “that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles — including in the struggle against terrorism.” And he said: “You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less than 60 years ago?”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke turned up among the speakers Monday at the first day of an Iranian-sponsored conference of Holocaust deniers in Tehran, praising Iran and acting as if denying that 6 million Jews were killed in World War II was a matter of opinion: “There must be freedom of speech. It is scandalous that the Holocaust cannot be discussed freely. It makes people turn a blind eye to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Talk about turning a blind eye to crimes.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
