Sedgwick County Manager William Buchanan has proved his ability and professionalism over 18 years of outstanding service. He has earned the respect of the business community, labor leaders and his peers around the country. If Commission Chairman Kelly Parks and Vice Chairwoman Gwen Welshimer are unhappy with Buchanan’s proposed 2010 budget, including his recommendation to close the Kansas Coliseum and its pavilions as of February, they should work with him toward changes. They should not vote to fire him, which apparently is the subject of a County Commission executive session Wednesday.
Next year’s GOP primary for Kansas secretary of state suddenly looks like a contest rather than a walk for former Kansas Republican Party chairman Kris Kobach (in photo). Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, has appointed a campaign treasurer for the race to replace four-term Republican Ron Thornburgh. J.R. Claeys of Salina is also seeking the GOP primary nod.
Meanwhile, voters curious about what makes Kobach tick — and drives his nationwide crusade to fight illegal immigration — may find enlightenment in a New York Times profile. Kobach, who now teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City law school, joined the Bush Justice Department just days before the Sept. 11 attacks and reportedly was stunned to learn that several of the hijackers had been the subject of traffic stops but the police didn’t know they were in the country illegally. “That impressed on me in a very salient way that there was a huge missed opportunity there that might have caused the 9/11 plot to unravel,” he told the Times, explaining his motivation to find ways to turn local police into the “eyes and ears” of federal immigration authorities.
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died July 6, expressed regrets late in life about the Vietnam War, observed Bradley Graham in a Washington Post commentary. “Will anyone apologize for Iraq?” he wondered. When Graham asked Donald Rumsfeld (in photo, with Condoleezza Rice) about Iraq-related regrets in an interview for a new biography of the former defense secretary, “he dismissed the question as a favorite press query unworthy of reply.”
Former Pentagon civilian policy chief Douglas Feith said: “It’s still highly political. And I just don’t think there’s any reason for the people who are on the receiving end of a political attack to play the game of the political attackers.”
Graham concluded: “Whether anyone ever apologizes, history at least is due an honest, detailed accounting of the actions and motivations of Rumsfeld and his colleagues.”
President Obama’s 55 percent approval rating in a new USA Today/Gallup poll doesn’t sound too bad compared with the low 30 percent approval ratings that President Bush had at the end of his term. But it places Obama 10th among the 12 post-World War II presidents at the same point in the survey, Real Clear Politics reported.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., may need to update his biography, which still says he “was the youngest secretary of agriculture in Kansas history.” Josh Svaty, the Ellsworth state lawmaker chosen last week by Gov. Mark Parkinson and already on the job this week, will be 29 until November. Brownback was a 30-year-old Manhattan attorney when the Kansas Board of Agriculture named him ag secretary in September 1986. Then again, Svaty is “acting” secretary “until the full Senate can consider the nomination,” according to a release from Parkinson’s office.
