The question going into the Scott Roeder trial was not whether he killed Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller; Roeder had already confessed. Rather, it was whether Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert would allow jurors to consider the charge of voluntary manslaughter, based on Roeder’s warped belief that he killed Tiller in order to save the lives of unborn babies. Wilbert made the correct ruling Thursday not to allow the lesser charge, and the jury needed only 30 minutes today to find Roeder guilty of first-degree murder, along with two additional counts of aggravated assault. Roeder wanted to get credit for his crime. After he receives his sentence on March 9 — preferably the Hard 50, as District Attorney Nola Foulston is requesting — he’ll also get the consequence. And then may we never hear from him again.
Members of the Kansas delegation weren’t impressed with President Obama’s proposal to freeze domestic spending for three years. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said: “I am pleased the president is concerned with our ever expanding federal deficit. However, his proposed efforts are a drop in the bucket and inconsistent with the ongoing actions of his party in Congress.” Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, said that “we need bold leadership to cut spending throughout the budget not just around the edges,” and he called on Obama to “repeal the so-called stimulus bill and end the TARP bailout program.” Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, complained that the freeze won’t start until 2011, will last only three years and will not affect the more than $862 billion in stimulus funds still to be spent. “Our country is facing a $1.3 trillion deficit this year alone, and the president’s recommendations are simply not enough,” Moran said.
Hard to believe that President Obama felt it necessary to use a teleprompter to address elementary schoolkids in Virginia last week, for a speech consisting of 964 words. That’s especially striking because a week earlier in Topeka, Gov. Mark Parkinson had used neither notes nor a teleprompter to deliver his 3,296-word State of the State address. Parkinson told The Eagle editorial board that he has tried using teleprompters but doesn’t like them. Meanwhile, the latest SurveyUSA poll, co-sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, found that 40 percent of Kansans approved of the job Obama was doing in January compared with 42 percent approval for Parkinson — a 4-point gain for Obama and a 3-point drop for Parkinson since December.
There are similarities between Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, who is considering running for governor, and Rep. Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, who ran for the office in 1998. In both cases, the Kansas Democratic Party struggled to find a candidate to take on a heavily favored GOP opponent. Sawyer ran against incumbent Gov. Bill Graves, and Holland, if he runs, will likely face Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. “What Sawyer got for his party loyalty was a beating you normally wouldn’t see outside of a Beetle Bailey cartoon,” Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Ric Anderson wrote. But Anderson thinks Holland could do better. “Where Graves was a moderate who had support from middle-of-the-road voters, Brownback’s conservatism could play against him at the polls,” Anderson wrote.
