Sunday, October 22, 2006
Two Mouths to Feed
Further evidence has surfaced demonstrating the greater difficulty the Republican Party is presently ... you should pardon the expression ... facing in pursuit of its strategy of playing to its base of radical religious conservatives while hoping the moderates will trust the leadership to go on treating the radical fringe as "nuts" and "goofy." Kansas Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Barnett tried to "clarify" his position to the editorial board of The Wichita Eagle on the long-running controversy in Kansas over teaching evolution. He had to openly state: "I believe in evolution." While I cannot see how any educated intelligent person could do otherwise, it was more than a little telling that Barnett felt it necessary to put it as: "I am not a kook."
Barnett, however, in what the editorial board called an "awkward straddle of this issue," tried not to lose the kook vote by saying that
... his campaign comments, which have followed the "teach the controversy" rhetoric of intelligent design advocates, were merely meant to support open discussion in classrooms and letting kids make up their own minds.Apparently he feels that schools have no duty to prevent children from becoming kooks.
.
