Denis, as you’ve written, the situation Phill Kline finds himself in is outrageous. It wasn’t enough to destroy his good name, drive him out of office, and kill the case against Planned Parenthood — they even want to take away his law license. What he’s got in his defense — besides the moral vindication of what we’ve learned about Planned Parenthood since then — is the record. And so they shred that away! Get rid of him, get rid of the evidence, nothing to look at, right? Except this is happening out in the open.
I realize the judiciary is Sebelius-PPville. But isn’t that why we have checks and balances? I’d really love to see Governor Sam Brownback put an end to the persecution of Phill Kline. Denounce it. Shed a light on it. Stand by Kline and thank him for being ahead of most of the rest of us, looking out for women and children in the face of a bipartisan sacred cow.
Kline must long for the days when he was only being dismissed by liberal editorialists as some kind of pervert, inordinately interested in women’s health issues. Those were just words — and the occasional cartoon. This all seems aimed at total destruction. Exacting revenge. All for doing his job. All for daring to question Planned Parenthood — and about the welfare of minors.
From all I’ve seen over the years, Phill Kline is a man of courage and integrity. And he deserves better than this.
It's typical of the differences between right and left. The left understands the importance of destroying the other side and protecting their own. Look at the difference in treatment between Webb Hubble and Linda Tripp, between Katherine Harris and any controversial member of the left. Our side loses jobs and careers, their side moves into six figure sinecures.
The left tears down people who have done nothing wrong, the right is typically tepid in criticism of people who've broken real laws. Their side ponies up funds for warriors of the left, our side looks away in embarrassment as though someone was crying needlessly in public. There are exceptions. NR's defense of Kelly Prejean was wonderful, and this post is a real effort to be and to cause a defense here. It's not going to get better until there is a price to be paid for mistreatment of our people, and other acts of misbehavior.
A few random suggestions:
- On marriage in NY, you're not going to punish the Judases who have collected a good deal more than 30 pieces of silver. You have to punish the timid NY leadership, i.e. Republicans generally, to make an example for the rest of the country;
- if Senate Dems have seriously violated the comity which allows the Senate to be "different", then the individual senators who have caused this need to be de-funded when the Republicans take the majority. Even if it's largely symbolic. Even if it's just Harry Reid.
- Eliminate the 9th Circuit. Let those judges sit in strip mall offices collecting their pay, but move all authority to other Circuits. Under the constitution, they keep their jobs for life. Not their power.
- In Kansas, the judges are appointed for life, but not their staff. Fire half their law clerks. Oversight of the legal profession is not meant to be the basis of political vendettas. Remove that power from the high court and give it to an independent authority.
If someone is truly misbehaving, anything which hurts them is a good way of saying "don't do that."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKline may be a man of courage but a man of integrity he clearly is not.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKliine and his cohorts in the then Kansas Attorney General's offices, lied to a judge, possibly others, in order to gain the court orders to intimidate abortion doctors to provide uncensored medical records. He used those same private medical records to prosecute them. He ordered undercover state police officers to stake-out clinics, collect car tags (many who were not seeking immediate abortions) and systematically shared that intelligence with "pro-life" organizations in Kansas, some convicted domestic terrorists.
Kline's official agents lied to my wife, Ann Kristin Neuhaus, MD (whether by his order, or their fervor to please him) by first; denying her 1st and 5th amendment rights; then imposing a gag order upon her; and finally making a permanent threat of instantaneous incarceration if she disobeyed his order to turn over her abortion patients' records.
His professional cohorts LIED to her, physically took and copied her patient records, then somehow, someone began distributing those same records to the insane John Birch Society media echo chambers.
He and his "pro-life" supporters of empire are traitors to the conservative credo of privacy, individual sovereignty, and frankly the old intellects that once steered the Republican Party.
Coming from a long line of Eisenhower Republicans I have been and continue to be deeply wounded by the hidebound demagoguery of these sensationalist 5-second sound bite idiots.
It has and continues to bode an ill wind for the pages of the National Review.
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