By Jack Cashill

(cont.)

In challenging the teaching of evolution, the state board has renewed an offensive in the nation’s ongoing “culture wars” along a front most Americans presumed dormant if not dead. In the process, they have exposed not just the cracks in the Darwinian dam but the gaping holes in the nation’s commitment to representative democracy. This exercise proved to be as much about civics as it was about science.

Among those most troubled by this unexpected breakout of democracy is the state’s entirely respectable Republican governor, Bill Graves. Indeed, the issue has evoked in Graves feelings of “great consternation and concern." Says he of the debate, “It certainly causes people to reexamine the question of the importance of the board in our efforts to make our public education system the finest that it can be.” In other words, if the people keep electing such peckerwoods, Graves just might deep six the board and the democratic process with it.

The local media establishment has been egging him on. Kansas City Star editorialist Laura Scott believes Graves would “have the pulse of the public on this matter” were he to dismiss the Board. Scott prefers the cozy and incestuous Missouri model. There, the Governor appoints the board, and the board elects a commissioner. Were Kansas to do the same, those folks who dare to reject what Scott calls ““accepted scientific theory” and “progressive changes” would have no say beyond their presumed trailer parks.

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