Former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials never conducted a "serious debate" about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat, the New York Times reported. Nor "was there ever a significant discussion" about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion, he writes. He describes Cheney and others as hell-bent on going to war with Iraq following the Sept. 11 attacks. So what about Tenet’s infamous "slam dunk" comment? He claims, not very convincingly, that he was talking about whether the administration could make a better public case for war, not about whether the intelligence evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a slam dunk.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
At a fundraising event last week in Missouri, security officers kept Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in a safe room for several minutes after reports that a person in attendance might be carrying a gun.
He wasn’t, but the incident shows how the prospect of citizens carrying concealed guns in public can lead to fear and confusion, not safety.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The local NAACP last week asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate an African-American woman’s complaint that she was kicked, beaten and stunned with a Taser by a Wichita police officer after being pulled over for a burned-out taillight.
It’s unclear whether the woman, who sported a bruised face, is telling the truth — she has a record of previous arrests and claims of excessive force.
But this seems a textbook example of the kind of “he said, she said” case that a video camera in the police officer’s car could help resolve — or perhaps prevent in the first place by its mere presence.
It’s puzzling why Wichita police have been resistant to a tool that could help confirm their professionalism and enhance public trust.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The New Hampshire legislature has passed a bill that legalizes civil unions for homosexuals — the first time civil unions have been legalized in a state without a court order or the threat of one. Gov. John Lynch plans to sign it.
“To me this legislation is a credit to our state. We’re making this move not because some court someplace is telling us that we must,” Democratic Sen. Joe Foster said. “We do so today because it is the right thing to do.”
Posted by Ross Stewart
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (in photo) doesn’t mention Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, by name in this Newsweek commentary about cities and illegal guns, but he clearly is aiming at Tiahrt’s 2003 gun data legislation in stating that “Congress is undermining our local efforts by handcuffing our police departments. Hard as it is to believe, right now federal law prevents our police officers from looking at all the data on guns used in crimes in our region. Where and when were they bought — and by whom? These are questions that we can’t ask. That means we can’t easily identify crooked dealers and illegal trafficking patterns. We can’t connect the dots.”
For his part, Tiahrt has a commentary in Friday’s Opinion pages arguing that the “Tiahrt amendment does not prohibit law enforcement authorities from receiving the information they need to investigate crimes in their communities” and promising to work with the mayor and others to improve the situation.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is the Democrat’s version of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — “a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance,” David Broder wrote in a column in Thursday’s Opinion pages. Reid has stuck his foot in his mouth many more times than just when he said that “the war in Iraq is lost.” “The Democrats deserve better and the country needs more than Reid has offered as Senate majority leader,” Broder wrote.
Posted by Patrice Hein
Everybody talks about the need to do something about health care. This week, the Legislature did something, unanimously approving a bipartisan plan that will, among other things, bring 24,000 Kansans off the rolls of the uninsured, help small businesses cover employees and get the Kansas Health Policy Authority to work toward long-term reform. “There is unanimous support for change,” said House Minority Leader Jim Ward, D-Wichita. “We have to do it differently.” Few Kansans would disagree with that, even as they’d argue about how.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Good for the Wichita-area legislative delegation for making the case to a conference committee Thursday for extending Wichita’s ability to use sales tax and revenue bonds for WaterWalk and the river corridor improvements. Both chambers still must vote on it, perhaps today, but the measure allows Wichita a specific extension for STAR bonds, which admittedly have been abused elsewhere in the state. City Hall officials said that without action, this top priority for downtown Wichita would be at risk. Now that progress is so visible both on WaterWalk work and the riverfront upgrade, this is no time for failure.
Posted by Rhonda Holman