A secret recording released Friday shows that three Republican officials sought to frame the county’s Republican chairman for a falsified ad they put together smearing then-mayoral candidate Brandon Whipple. One compared their mission to that of the man who shot Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.
“Us Republicans, we all agree,” Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell said. “The murder of George Tiller was bad. But am I sad that he’s dead? No. I’m just glad I’m not the one who pulled the trigger.”
Tiller was assassinated in 2009 by anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder during a Sunday morning service while Tiller was serving as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.
State Rep. Michael Capps said the anti-Whipple video was justifiable to derail Whipple’s candidacy, because he’s a “liberal Democrat.”
“It’s what we do,” Capps said. “It’s the way the system works. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made, they only want the sausage when it’s done. And that’s the principle: This is the sausage making — nobody likes to see that.”