TIMELINE OF THE KLINE-TILLER CASE In October 2006, after a prolonged legal battle, the judge finally handed Kline the medical records he sought, after personally having redacted all information that could identify any individual patients. Shortly afterward, with Kline present as a guest on his television program, Bill O'Reilly revealed private medical information that he claimed came directly from those same supposedly secure records in Kline's personal custody. And Kline didn't even blink, let alone ask O'Reilly any questions about the source of that highly confidential information. But Dr. Tiller had questions aplenty, and he wanted answers. Dr. Tiller's attorney remarked, "This has been our concern from the beginning, that if he ended up with these records, that just this type of event would occur. Our worst nightmare has happened. Women in America deserve better than this."
November 2006 -- Tiller asks the Kansas Supreme Court to investigate Kline and Fox television host Bill O'Reilly. And now, as December draws to a close, Kline's time is running short.
Time is working against Phill Kline as the Republican and passionately anti-abortion attorney general seeks to vindicate himself over activities that helped prompt Kansas voters to boot him from statewide office. And no one can say he isn't putting a rush on it.
Late Thursday, Kline and his top assistants traveled to Wichita, where Tiller's clinic is located, and filed 30 misdemeanor charges against Tiller, accusing him of performing illegal late-term abortions. What is the ostensible impetus for Kline's urgent need, in his last days as Attorney General, to press criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller? Why, it's that old legal bugaboo, "health of the woman." Health is what Kline says it is -- and as even a superficial acquaintance with his own actions over the past few years reveals, Phill Kline doesn't see mental dysfunction as a bar to competency in either daily life or public service.
In most of the abortions at issue, Tiller and a second doctor listed as justification for the abortion "major depressive disorder, "single episode," or "acute stress disorder," according to Kline. Let us consider the constitutional issue of mental health, as the diagnosis and treatment of this type of illness are understood, taught and practiced by expertly qualified physicians across the nation -- practitioners with an infinitely more profound knowledge of its importance and ramifications than Kline could ever hope for. Here's a comment that I received this week regarding the excuse for Kline's vendetta, written by a physician far more respected in the field of medicine than is Kline in the field of public service:
This guy needs a simple lesson I teach the students and residents all the time: Doctors aren't the only ones disgusted with Phill Kline. The Lawrence Journal-World ran a blistering editorial on Christmas Eve.
Although only 35 percent of Johnson County voters supported Kline's bid to continue as attorney general, a slim majority of the county's Republican committeemen and committeewomen decided he was the best choice to fill the district attorney's seat. And Kansas Governor Kathleen Silbelius has taken the unusual move of issuing an official public statement on Kline's irregular appointment as Johnson County's new District Attorney.
With the overwhelming election of Paul Morrison as Attorney General - an outcome even more pronounced in Johnson County - the people of Kansas made a strong and unequivocal statement about Phill Kline's fitness for law enforcement and his pursuit of misguided, personal priorities in public office. But Kline isn't finished with being Attorney General just yet. On Wednesday morning he will have the chance to plead his case one last time.
A judge agreed Tuesday to let Kansas' attorney general, a vocal abortion opponent, try to persuade him to reinstate charges against a well-known abortion provider.
Do keep checking your watch, though, because time's a-wasting.
De-Kline of a Vendetta | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
De-Kline of a Vendetta | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
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