President Bush is in town, arriving at McConnell Air Force Base at 11:28 a.m. It was good of him to make his first stop the Boeing Co. modification facility, where he thanked workers for doing such a good job on Air Force One.
Our editorial today argues that the Boys & Girls Club complex on East 21st Street, the main reason for the president’s visit, is deserving of the national attention. When the $8 million club fully opens July 9, it will join the Opportunity Project nearby — the sunny $3 million early childhood learning center funded by Barry and Paula Downing and open a year now. Next will come a new $10.4 million public elementary and middle school and adjacent clinic to open in August 2008, the first such school building project in the neighborhood since 1971.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Pro-life activists are claiming that Attorney General Paul Morrison isn’t seriously investigating Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller because Morrison supports abortion rights. But might former Attorney General Phill Kline’s dogged pursuit of Tiller have been motivated more by his fervent pro-life views than by a fair application of the law? Speaking at the National Right to Life convention in Kansas City, Mo., Thursday, Kline said that "the soil of Kansas is stained red," that "abortion is sin, and sin always begins with a lie," and that America needed to rise "above the din of a decadent culture" to defeat abortion.
The overwhelming majority of Kansas voters chose Morrison because they trusted his professional judgment more than they did Kline’s.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Casino and real estate mogul Phil Ruffin, in a phone interview this week with The Eagle editorial board, said he remains serious about bringing a Trump casino to Wichita — and that friend and business partner Donald Trump “is excited about it,” too.
As a market, Wichita is “on the edge” in qualifying for a Trump casino, Ruffin said, but he thinks it can work here. A downtown location is still his preference, but he’s hedging his bets and looking at other sites as well.
Kansas Lottery executive director Ed Van Petten told The Eagle that Kansas law, which forbids a dog track owner from also owning a casino, probably wouldn’t prevent Ruffin from doing the project, but Van Petten has asked Attorney General Paul Morrison for a legal opinion on the matter.
Ruffin said local anti-gaming groups are “totally wrong” to argue that a casino wouldn’t attract tourists and economic development.
A Trump casino, known for its opulence, would “bring people in from Nebraska, Oklahoma and Missouri,” he said, and bring dollars into the community.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Dan Rather isn’t backing off his criticism of his former employer, CBS News. Rather complained on a radio talk show Monday that CBS executives tried to lure viewers to “CBS Evening News” by “dumbing it down and tarting it up.” The executives quickly accused Rather of sexism toward new anchor Katie Couric. But Rather told Washington Post critic Tom Shales that he was referring to the content of the news show, not to Couric, and he raised valid concerns about how the news media are replacing hard news with entertainment. “We have enormous life-or-death issues and challenges facing us in this country and the world today,” Rather said. “Everything from the dismantling of civil rights enforcement within the Justice Department to the war in Iraq to news of secret prisons in Europe and, of course, the next presidential election.
“And yet, for some reason, Paris Hilton is the big story on newscast after newscast.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Former Wichita Eagle managing editor Clark Hoyt (1981-85) did a “soft launch” Sunday of his soon-to-be regular column as the New York Times’ new “public editor.” Hoyt’s job is to examine and critique the Times’ news judgments, and he said he couldn’t resist writing about the newspaper’s decision not to put on its front page an article about the alleged terrorism plot at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Some readers — and Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly — had accused the Times of bias for not giving the story better play. But Hoyt reported that the news decision was based on the Times’ determination that — contrary to the apocalyptic statements that a U.S. attorney made in announcing the charges — the ability of the accused men to carry out an attack “was very much open to question.” Nonetheless, Hoyt agreed the article would have been better on the front page, because it “would have told readers that the Times knew what they were concerned about, that there was something real here, but that it wasn’t anywhere near happening and there was no need for alarm.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
