Tuesday’s Democratic debate was the starkest demonstration yet of how that party’s nomination race has become Hillary Clinton versus everybody else. But attacking her as a flip-flopping, double-talking hawk only elevates her stature — arguably unearned, based on her brief six years in elective office. Her rivals end up underscoring the strength of her candidacy and distracting from their own credentials, some of which are unparalleled. And if moderators are barely going to acknowledge certain candidates’ presence on the stage (Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich), why invite them at all?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
My memories of trick-or-treating are sweet and innocent — being sent to family friends’ houses in a pink princess dress with my aluminum-foil-wrapped spaceman brother.
Apparently, girls these days aren’t limited to homemade or even age-appropriate costumes. Stores feature adult-modified costumes of everything from little French maids to Britney Spears to "Red Hot," coming in sizes toddler to preteen.
While parents may find these costumes cute and innocuous, some thought should be given to the effect their daughter’s scanty "Devilicious" costume (in photo) is having on her concept of self-worth and body image.
Parents may not be able to stop the deluge of societal pressures on girls, but at the very least, they can help buy a few more years of innocence by not allowing sexy Halloween costumes.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
“These self-promoting values hacks don’t speak for the American mainstream,” declared New York Times columnist Frank Rich about Tony Perkins, James Dobson (in photo), Gary Bauer and other leaders of the religious right. “They don’t speak for the Republican Party. They no longer speak for many evangelical ministers and their flocks. The emperors of morality have in fact had no clothes for some time. Should Rudy Giuliani end up doing a victory dance at the Republican convention, it will be on their graves.”
Rich cited a CBS News poll that found white evangelical voters care more about the war in Iraq and health care than about any other issues, while abortion and same-sex marriage are at the bottom of their list of election priorities. Yet, Rich noted, the recent Values Voters Summit “didn’t even think to list the war, health care or fighting poverty among the 12 hot-button options.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
If coal plants are too polluting and wind farms too untested, should Kansas go more nuclear? Among the arguments for expanding the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington: No greenhouse gas emissions. No likely opposition from Coffey County, home to about half of Wolf Creek’s nearly 1,000 employees. “It has provided a stable work environment and promoted economic development,” Jim Hills, a Burlington auto parts store owner, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. A bigger Wolf Creek, though, would require a huge investment. Then there’s the unsettled issue of where to put such plants’ high-level radioactive waste.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
America has its divides beyond politics. Turns out there’s a diversity gap on trick-or-treating, likely linked to neighborhood safety concerns rather than cultural or religious beliefs. A new Associated Press-Ipsos Poll found that 73 percent of whites plan to have their kids trick-or-treat tonight, compared with 56 percent of minorities. Also, 70 percent of liberals, 67 percent of moderates and 55 percent of conservatives said they would be handing out treats.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s good that Democratic leaders are finally getting serious about attracting more Republican support for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. After rushing another vote on the SCHIP bill last week, Democrats are now talking with key Republicans about how to reach the two-thirds majority needed to override what’s likely to be another misguided veto by President Bush.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Wichita is ground zero in the latest New York Times Magazine cover story, which says the religious right "shows signs of coming apart beneath its leaders." As we say in our editorial today, writer David D. Kirkpatrick "oversold the idea of an ‘evangelical crackup,’ but there is no question that in Wichita and far beyond, Christians are rethinking how and how much to bring their Bible-based values to bear in the public square."
The article ends with this quote from the Rev. Terry Fox, whose transition from "Jerry Falwell of the Sunflower State" to pastor of Summit Church frames the piece: "Some might compare the religious right to a snake. We may be in our hole right now, but we can come out and bite you at any time."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
However the two prisoners’ escape from the El Dorado Correctional Facility plays out, the public will be left to wonder whether the prison’s security is all it should be. The Kansas Department of Corrections must ensure that it is, as it learns how Jesse Bell and Steven Ford were able to cut through three fences Sunday night and apparently reach the waiting car of former prison guard Amber Goff. This was not a case of small-time criminals walking off a minimum security prison farm. Bell and Ford were assigned to a long-term involuntary segregation unit, in the same part of the prison where BTK strangler Dennis Rader and Kansas’ death row inmates are confined. Kansans need to be able to trust that the El Dorado prison is secure.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Good for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for calling on Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey to be firm in opposing the U.S. use of the interrogation technique known as water-boarding. “I am convinced as an individual senator, as a military lawyer for 25 years, that water-boarding, the technique that was described to Judge Mukasey, does violate the Geneva Convention, does violate our war crimes statute, and is clearly illegal under domestic and international law,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And I think it would serve the attorney general nominee well to embrace that concept. He’s talked around it.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
During a strong performance on “Fox News Sunday,” first lady Laura Bush had a good answer for conservative critics of her decision to wear a pink-ribboned head scarf during her recent trip to Saudi Arabia to talk with women about fighting breast cancer. “I’d had the meeting with them totally uncovered,” she said. “They saw this as giving me a gift from their culture. And it was the scarf with the pink ribbons and the pink edging on it, the breast cancer scarf, that I put on. . . . They want American women to know what they’re like. And these women do not see covering as some sort of subjugation of women, this group of women that I was with. That’s their culture. That’s their tradition. That’s a religious choice of theirs.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s good to see the park board asking Wichitans what they want in their city parks in coming decades. One request it’s hearing is for dog parks, areas where dog owners can let their pooches play and run leash-free.
The idea is fast gaining in popularity across the country, according to a recent Washington Post article. A key appeal of dog parks is the social interaction that occurs there — among owners, a la the movie “Must Love Dogs.”
“We realized a long time ago that these parks weren’t about the dogs so much but about people coming together and building communities. . . . People have met their boyfriends, girlfriends and spouses at these parks,” said an Arlington, Va., parks official.
They sound like great places for people to get out, get some exercise and meet their neighbors. Dogs might even like them, too.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Kansas Senate President Steve Morris and other western Kansas leaders cried foul upon learning that a statewide anti-coal ad campaign was sponsored by Chesapeake Energy, a natural gas company based in Oklahoma.
Morris called it “self-serving.” Many others thought the lurking profit factor undercut the objectivity of the “knowyourpower.net” ads.
A Chesapeake spokesman argued that there’s nothing wrong with his company pointing out the drawbacks of a competitor. “I don’t think there’s anything impure about that,” he said.
But Chesapeake’s failure to reveal its sponsorship up front inevitably raises credibility issues in people’s minds.
Still, it’s interesting that the critics have yet to challenge the ad campaign’s science-based evidence about the respiratory and other health impacts of coal-fired plants.
Thanks to the high-profile ads, many more Kansans are informed about the health and environmental downsides of coal-fired energy.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline’s crusade against Planned Parenthood, reports conservative columnist Robert Novak, has inspired national anti-abortion leaders to "open a new front in the endless abortion wars," with Planned Parenthood as the target.
They are pressing Congress to withhold more than $300 million in federal funds from Planned Parenthood — about one-third of its operating budget — until the results are known of Kline’s recent 107-count indictment against the organization.
But as we argued in an editorialSaturday, the campaign targets federal funds that Planned Parenthood legally can use only for family planning services other than abortion. And it should worry those who value impartial justice that Kline’s legal war is linked to a national strategy that, in Novak’s words, "attempts to expand a Kansas criminal prosecution into a nationwide assault."
Posted by Randy Scholfield
"Republicans seeking to keep their party’s base intact, while appealing to independents in order to have a shot at defeating Hillary, are taking another look at John McCain," wrote Kate O’Beirne for National Review. She argues that, contrary to the perception of many Republicans, national polls show that McCain does slightly better than Rudy Giuliani in a head-to-head match with Clinton. "McCain is as likely to win as Giuliani — and his positions on the issues are in closer accord with those of Republican voters," she wrote.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The party in charge of Congress changed, but the appetite for freebies apparently didn’t. Despite new House restrictions on travel paid by lobbyists, lawmakers have accepted nearly $1.9 million worth of free trips this year, more than all of last year, USA Today reported. Part of the reason for the increase is that last year’s total was low because lawmakers were worried about what voters would think about the free trips. There is also an exception in the new travel restrictions that allows lawmakers to accept free trips for stays of only one or two nights. USA Today reported that 22 House Democrats and three Republicans accepted nearly $40,000 in travel under that exception.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Hollywood is working on a movie based on the story of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. It sounds as if the movie is portraying the Miller character as a hero who was willing to go to jail rather than reveal her sources. But will it also show the Miller character being used by the administration to get uncritical news stories published about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction? Will it show her helping sell a war?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Kansas is the worst state in the nation for getting Social Security disability claims, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. Kansas has nearly 15,000 waiting for a decision about their disability claims, according to the American Association of People With Disabilities and Allsup Inc. In Wichita, the wait is nearly 17 months.
The Social Security Administration wants to try a pilot program in Kansas City that would close the Social Security offices to customers on Wednesdays so that staff could work on existing cases. But the idea doesn’t fly with Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Topeka: “We are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to backlogs, and now you are going to tell the good people of Kansas that you are going to close offices one day a week.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
I’m still trying to get my head around the latest estimate of the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the two wars may cost $2.4 trillion (that’s with a “t”) through 2017. The estimates assume that about 75,000 U.S. troops will remain in the two countries for the next decade — which may not end up being the case but is not unreasonable, a defense analyst told USA Today. Part of the reason for the much higher estimate is that the wars are being funded with borrowed money, and the CBO included an interest cost of $705 billion. The new estimate calculates to $8,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Good for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., for voting with 11 other Republicans Wednesday to try to advance the DREAM Act — the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. The effort failed, 52-44, confirming that the majority in Congress would rather do nothing than do anything to bring the millions of illegal immigrants out of the shadows of our economy and communities. But Brownback and the others in favor deserve credit for trying to help the youngest and most innocent among the illegal immigrant population — those who came here with their parents and have graduated from high school here. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., voted “nay.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Rudy Giuliani said in Iowa Wednesday that he didn’t know if water-boarding was torture. “It depends on the circumstances,” he said. “It depends on who does it.”
That brought a sharp rebuke from John McCain, the lone voice of moral clarity in the GOP on torture. “It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture,” he said.
McCain pointed to its use by the Spanish Inquisition, Cambodian leader Pol Pot, and reportedly by the Burmese government against Buddhist monks.
Giuliani and other GOP leaders would put America in this company?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
