Phill Kline just can't help himself. His latest nonsense is to offer to meet with each of the Johnson County Commissioners individually in order to "clear up concerns over how he is operating his office." For some reason the Johnson County Commissioners don't want to do things that way. It may have something to do with Kansas' open meetings law, along with the fact that Kline has a history of this type of thing. When he was the Kansas Attorney General, he met with portions of the Kansas Board of Education, letting them know that he, as AG, would support their efforts if they wanted to put stickers criticizing evolution on science textbooks.

It's not that everyone is so naive as to think that public officials never meet in private. The problem is that Kline clearly doesn't want people to know what he's doing. The town meetings he recently had showed that he is also growing extremely sensitive to any criticism, so trying to avoid a public meeting with the County Commission is probably just a passive-aggressive way of keeping clear of an uncomfortable situation.

That's just too bad. Phill Kline was recently handed a $180,000/year job against the will of the majority of Johnson County voters. He may not like it, but his position carries with it responsibilities, one of which is to conduct his business, as much as is consistent with proper prosecutorial practice, out in the open. If he really just wants to "clear the air" regarding the things the Johnson County Commissioners are hearing about his conduct as DA, then he needs to get on the schedule of a regular commission meeting or even call a special meeting. The general public of Johnson County has also been hearing things, and we'd also like to have the air cleared. Schedule a meeting and state your case, Mr. Kline. Everyone knows you want to avoid embarrassing yourself by actually trying to prosecute a case, but you've got to get up in front of people and talk to them at some point.

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