To the editor:

The flap over the Joe McCarthy-style “red-baiting” remarks against the ACLU and the League of Women Voters by Secretary of State Kris Kobach has obscured a small detail of the background of the story. Toward the end of the Feb. 23 story by Peter Hancock “Feds: Election agency erred with registration forms,” it’s revealed that the individual at the center of the controversy, Brian Newby, is tied to Kobach. It states: “Before being hired at the EAC, Newby had been Kobach’s appointed commissioner in Johnson County.”

Mr. Newby, executive director of the federal four-member bipartisan commission (yes, a federal post) unilaterally granted Kansas’ request to make the recently implemented Kansas voter registration rules apply to the federal registration forms as well. The lawsuits by the ACLU and the LWV to reverse this decision by Mr. Newby, brought by the purported “communist” organizations, fit nicely into Mr. Kobach’s passion to be at the center of attention. It’s fitting that in this case, it led to the revelation that he has his man in a key federal election oversight commission.

I think a better headline for the article would have been: “Feds: Kobach protégé erred with registration forms.” Though some might prefer “Feds bow to suits by commie orgs” with the subhead “Kobach mole outed in fed agency.”

These are times when one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.