OPINION
LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD ● LJWorld.com ● Sunday, April 17, 2011
EDITORIALS
KBA questions Questions about the operation and leadership of the Kansas Bioscience Authority should be cleared up as soon as possible.
T
om Thornton’s sudden resignation as president and CEO of the Kansas Bioscience Authority is sure to generate much fingerpointing in an effort to blame this or that person for Thornton’s departure. The one true fact is that the KBA is a unique, visionary creation of the Kansas Legislature, and it has the potential to play a tremendous role in the Kansas economy. Whether Thornton was the right man to lead this effort is debatable. Whether he and/or board members engaged in questionable policies and actions is up in the air. KBA Chairman John Carlin is quick to say Thornton and board members were responsible for getting the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility located at Manhattan and Kansas State University. This is a giant overstatement. Also, there is unanimity among many with whom Thornton worked that his manner often was offensive, arrogant and uncommunicative. At the request of Gov. Sam Brownback, KBA officials have contracted with the accounting firm of BKD to perform a forensic audit in order to try to prove there have not been any questionable fiscal actions by Thornton or board members. This is the same firm that handled the recent audit of the Kansas University athletic department ticket scam. Some question whether the BKD action at LI was a true audit or a mere review. Many observers also believe the public should know whether KBA placed a cap on the fee BKD would receive, which could limit the scope of the audit. They also are interested in the identity of the lead auditor and his or her past experience. Many supporters of Thornton have said they believe the KBA/Thornton question was fueled by Brownback, who wanted to take control of the body. Maybe some of those making this charge were aware of how former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius did, indeed, try to take over the KU Hospital board and how she injected herself into the KBA board. Brownback makes it clear he has no desire to control the KBA but he does say he wants to make sure there is proper stewardship of state taxpayer dollars. Apparently, there are sufficient questions relative to this that Johnson County officials have issued subpoenas to individuals seeking more information about possible questionable actions. Thornton, Carlin and board members have handed out millions of dollars, which is one way to win friends and admirers. Also, it’s almost guaranteed to win defenders. The KBA, the authority itself is great for the state, but there appears to be reason to question Thornton’s leadership, as well as board actions and the defense of Thornton by former Gov. Carlin. In order to protect the KBA and not handicap what this authority can do for the state, this unfortunate situation should be clear ups as soon as possible.
Obama seems paralyzed by caution Say what you wish about Barack Obama, you have to acknowledge that the man displayed an exquisite sense of timing four years ago. He was a (very) junior senator then, with a halfterm of service in the Capitol. The leading voices in the Democratic Party — Hillary Clinton, Gen. Wesley Clark, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and John Edwards — were organizing their presidential camThe president’s budget paigns. They were all veterans of speech last week was the political wars, each with plausible routes to the Democratic clearly an effort to regain nomination, some with estab- the offensive, but the lished political organizations, all pertinent and persistent with appealing life stories. But then, in February 2007, question is why a Obama announced he was going president who faces no to run for president. You could almost hear the discernible opponent for howls of disbelief: too young, too re-election and who has a inexperienced, too liberal, too party majority in the closely identified with minority Senate is so much on the politics. But the more Obama was told it wasn’t his time, the more defensive.” he believed it might be. And he was right. of events — a common complaint for older politicians, but not for Timing and audacity people his age — yet for all his Timing is important in presi- powers as president he cannot dential politics, but sometimes so slow them. Even Princeton basis audacity. Obama knew that ketball has abandoned the slowintuitively, and it is not a coinci- down offense that Pete Carril dence that he married audacity pioneered and used to take the with his greatest campaign gift Tigers to the NCAA tournament and titled his second book “The 11 times and to upend UCLA in Audacity of Hope.” It was auda- 1996. Today they play the same cious — actually it stretched the game everyone else does. conventional meaning of audaciMoreover, the man who knew ty — for someone less than three when to do the audacious thing years out of the Illinois state Sen- has traded that in for a new tradeate to think he could or should be mark: caution. I know the perils of the president of the United States. this sort of metric, but the words So — and you knew this was “cautious” and “Obama” appear coming — the story of the past together more than 13 million two years is that Barack Obama times on the Internet. That’s more lost his sense of timing and his than five times as often as the pairinstinct for audacity. ing “audacious” and “Obama.” The man who knew just when There is great virtue in caution to say exactly the right thing — to and in its first cousin, prudence, make the precisely correct ges- a favorite word of former Presiture — is repeatedly days, weeks, dent George H.W. Bush. Presisometimes even months behind, dents should be cautious when so much so that it almost seems sending Americans into danger he is out of sync with the new or tinkering with the economy. rhythms of American politics. Yet there are increasing signs Obama may hate the velocity that the president is paralyzed by
David Shribman
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Committee Chairman Paul Ryan wants to conduct rather than on the social contract the president wants to preserve. In his glory days, Newt Gingrich never approximated the power Boehner has amassed in only three months. Other powerful House speakers, like Joe Cannon and Thomas Brackett Reed (known as “Czar Reed” when the phrase had real meaning, in part because there was a real czar in Russia), held sway over their chambers, but no one thought that Speaker Reed was more powerful than President William McKinley or that Speaker Cannon was more powerful than President Theodore Roosevelt. On the defensive And already Ryan has become the The president’s budget speech most influential chairman of the last week was clearly an effort to House Budget Committee since it regain the offensive, but the perti- was established in 1974. nent and persistent question is why a president who faces no dis- Republicans in power cernible opponent for re-election Obama couldn’t help but weigh and who has a party majority in the in with a major address on the Senate is so much on the defensive. budget issue, given that the counPut another way: How often try faces a $1.5 trillion deficit this has a single chamber of Congress year and a debt of more than $14 completely dominated the sub- trillion — so troubling a situation stance and rhythms of politics? that the International Monetary By most measures, Speaker Fund said last week that the UnitJohn Boehner is not the presi- ed States lacks a “credible stratedent’s equal in intelligence, elo- gy” to attack the debt problem. quence, elegance or nimbleness. But his public entry into the Then again, by most measures, debate was late, just as his high-proBoehner has bested the president file entries into the Egyptian and every time they have tangled. Libyan matters were late. So used to Indeed, it is not too much to Obama’s absence were members of say that Boehner is the Reggie a bipartisan Senate committee Jackson of the capital: the straw laboring on a debt-reduction plan that is stirring the Washington that the leaders of the group sugdrink. That’s quite an achieve- gested the president could be getment, given that Boehner is ting in the way of progress. struggling to balance his tea The president’s frequent alluparty freshmen with his Kiwanis sions to Ronald Reagan make his Club frontbenchers. allies uncomfortable. But PresiBut all of the important strug- dent Reagan often said that he gles of the current period are didn’t care who got credit as long being conducted on Boehner’s as the work was done. turf and are being shaped by Perhaps that is Obama’s stratBoehner’s Republican caucus, as egy. If so, he is succeeding well raucous a caucus as it is. Indeed, enough at a time of divided govthe budget debate, which Obama ernment to reinforce the notion sought in his speech to portray as that the Republicans are the a fight to preserve “a progressive party in power in Washington. — David Shribman is executive editor vision of our society,” is mostly of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. about the overhaul House Budget caution. Often it is prudent — that word again — to hold back, to let things develop. It is especially useful to hold back when your rivals are self-destructing, which was a smart strategy for Obama in the earliest days of his presidency. But modern Republicans have made perhaps the soundest and sturdiest recovery in history. They weren’t in as big a hole in 2009 as they were in 1965, after the Goldwater debacle, to be sure, but they’ve climbed out with remarkable speed and skill, which is why the Obama conundrum is so perplexing and his apparent dispassion so puzzling.
OLD HOME TOWN
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From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for April 17, 1911: YEARS “Dozens of freak AGO occurrences are IN 1911 reported from all sections of town (from the April 12 tornado). At the residence of J. T. Curbey, 608 Ky. street, a razor is embedded in the siding. It was carried from the home of some neighbor, opened, and the blade firmly planted in the pine boards. A window sash on one of the upper floors of the southeast corner of the Fraternal Aid building was lifted bodily from its frame and carried in a circle around the building. It was dropped through the double doors on the north front of the building.”
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Conservative politicians tied to biggest lies “If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood. And that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” — Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., April 8, 2011
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“(The statistic Kyl used) was not intended to be a factual statement ...” — Statement from Kyl’s office to CNN, later that day Actually, about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortion-related. The overwhelming majority of the organization’s work involves cancer screenings, contraception and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Granted, the 3 percent figure is self-reported and Politifact, the nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website, suggests it could nudge higher depending on how you crunch the numbers. But it also rules that Kyl “vastly overstated” the organization’s involvement in abortions. In other words, he lied. Conservatives seem to do that an awful lot. No, the capacity for mendacity is not exclusive to any party or ideology. Yes, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid
Leonard Pitts Jr. lpitts@miamiherald.com
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The end justifies any means. So, as was the case with Jon Kyl, if you can’t prove your point with the facts at hand, make up some facts and prove it with those.” have all, at one point or another, been at variance with the truth. But when it comes to serial lying, to the biggest, most brazen, most audacious lies, the lies repeated ad nauseam until people mistake them for truth, when it comes to the most absolute contempt for the facts and for the necessity of honest debate, it’s not even close. Conservatives have no equal.
Consider: Politifact has six categories for judging veracity. A statement is either true, mostly true, half true, barely true, false, or “Pants On Fire,” after the old schoolyard taunt that begins “Liar! Liar!” Politifact uses this designation for statements that are not only untrue but also make some “ridiculous claim.” I reviewed 100 such statements on Politifact’s website. By my count, of the 70 that originated with an identifiable individual or group (as opposed to a chain email or miscellaneous source), 61 were from the political right. That includes Rush Limbaugh saying President Obama is going to take away your right to fish, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer saying beheaded bodies are being found in the desert, Sarah Palin claiming death panels will stalk the elderly — 90 percent of the most audacious lies coming from conservatives. And that word is used advisedly here. There is little that is truly conservative about what we are seeing. No, this is extremism, true believers so rigidly committed to their ideological crusades that
they feel justified in vandalizing reason and sacrificing integrity in furtherance of their cause. The end justifies any means. So, as was the case with Jon Kyl, if you can’t prove your point with the facts at hand, make up some facts and prove it with those. It says much about the intellectual state of what passes for conservatism and the intellectual state of the union itself that this sort of behavior has become business as usual, just another day in the Zeitgeist. This cannot end well. To continue down this path is to carve out a future of intellectual incoherence and international irrelevance, to doom ourselves to yet more of a fractured political discourse that is loud, ignorant and incapable of reason, much less resolution. And maybe Sen. Kyl’s claim was “not intended to be a factual statement,” but just so you know? Mine is. — Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald. He chats with readers from noon to 1 p.m. CDT each Wednesday on www.MiamiHerald.com.