Phill Kline just can't stay out of the limelight. His ideological crusade has always put him in front of a lot of cameras, and now he's hooked. Phill took a page out of Britney Spears' bad-comeback playbook and brought back charges against a Planned Parenthood clinic in Overland Park. Just a dedicated public servant doing his duty on behalf of an ever shrinking constituency? Guess again:

Attorney General Paul Morrison previously reviewed all of the allegations upon which Kline's criminal charges are based and found no wrongdoing, Morrison spokeswoman Ashley Anstaett said.

"The attorney general did a thorough review of Planned Parenthood and found no wrongdoing," Anstaett said. "We are skeptical that these charges have any merit, and we continue to wonder how much politics influenced Mr. Kline's decision to file these charges."

Kline's charges came less than four months after Morrison closed his investigation and told Planned Parenthood's attorneys that he found no wrongdoing by the clinic or its personnel.

Proof that Phill Kline will do anything to get on camera, even bring up charges that have already been dismissed by the state's leading law enforcement officer. Most people familiar with Kline aren't asking if these charges will hold up, but when they will be dismissed.

So whose comeback is better - Phill's or Britney's?

Kansas City's Pitch Weekly, makes a good point about the Kansas Republican Party's new Loyalty Committe:

...when your party is nearly bankrupt and your brightest stars are bailing ranks and winning for the opposite team, maybe it's not a bad idea to put the fear of God (or, in this case, Chairman Kris Kobach) back into the hearts of unfaithful members.

They then go on to list a few local organizations that would benefit from the formation of a "Loyalty Committee" to keep an eye on their members. Here's my favorite:

JoCo DA Phill Kline: Staffers must sign waivers agreeing to wiretaps in their offices and to fetch Phill a Slim-Fast when he's too busy posting propaganda on the DA Web site.

What is it about Republican Attorneys General that drives them to lie?

Maybe Alberto is just gonzo for Phill and learned his tricks from him.

Phill Kline has backed down, removing the Web link to the column equating Kansans who oppose his actions with Nazi sympathizers, which was first reported by this blog.

The Kansas City Star reports the article was removed Friday.

"In the interests of harmony I decided we'll just take it off," said Kline spokesman Brian Burgess, who maintains the taxpayer-funded site for the district attorney's office. "But I won't rule out putting something there again. "Going forward," Burgess said, "I will try to be a little more sensitive to differing points of view. I'm going to try and focus on more news-related stuff."

Yes, "news-related stuff" -- that might be a better option for a taxpayer-funded Web site than articles equating Kansans to the Third Reich.

The Kansas City Star today reported on how Phill Kline is using his taxpayer-funded Web site to spread propaganda.

But the story misses a key fact -- one reported first by the Buffalo Blog -- that the article in question equates those who oppose Kline and his efforts to Nazi sympathizers.

And sadly, the three Johnson County Commissioners interviewed sound like they think if they ignore Kline he'll just go away. There is one way to make him go away, but it is more than a year off.

If you don't support Phill Kline, you're like a Nazi sympathizer. That's the message of an article posted on the front page of Kline's taxpayer-funded Web site.

"In watching all of this [the controversy surrounding Kline's abortion investigations] take place, I have to ask myself whether we judged too harshly those ‘Good Germans,' who turned a blind eye to Nazi inhumanities. In Kansas, we don't even have a Gestapo to explain our passivity."

That's from a column by Jack Cashill, Kline supporter and local conspiracy theorist. And that column equating the majority of Kansans with Nazi sympathizers is the first thing anyone sees when going to the official Web site of the District Attorney of Johnson County, Kansas.

How long will Kline be allowed to use the office he was appointed to by the Johnson County Republican Party for personal and political gain? When will the Johnson County Commission rein him in? 2008 seems like a long time to wait.

Prosecutors – especially the highest prosecutor in the state – are supposed to possess certain values. Integrity. Fairness. Knowledge of the law. The ability to operate common office equipment.

Phill Kline, it seems, possesses none of these.

Attorney General Paul Morrison's investigation of the state's highest-profile abortion provider revealed former Attorney General Phill Kline may have acted unethically to advance criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller … Fifteen misdemeanor counts brought by then-Attorney General Kline in December alleging misconduct by Tiller in reporting late-term abortions were based on incomplete and misleading information …

Some of this misconduct sounds serious enough to warrant an ethics investigation…

Perhaps more significantly, [Morrison’s office said], the probable-cause affidavit submitted by Kline to a Sedgwick County judge left out information that might have been favorable to Tiller in evaluating the validity of the 11 other reporting counts.

Others are the result of not knowing how to operate a copier…

In four of the 15 cases, [Morrison spokeswoman Ashley] Anstaett said, Kline relied on mixed-up KDHE records to support misdemeanor charges against Tiller. She said Kline seized upon what appeared to be reporting inconsistencies by Tiller to justify four misdemeanor counts. Morrison discovered document copying errors were to blame for Kline's confusion, she said.

And about Kline’s claim that the medical records would be kept safe and private?

Anstaett also said problems locating records and case files from Kline’s investigation delayed Morrison’s review. The case file was missing when Morrison took office, she said.

Medical records were retrieved, she said, from the Sedgwick County courts, a Shawnee County judge and district attorney, a special prosecutor hired by Kline and Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist consulted in the case.

Now where recently have we heard of a prosecutor placing politics above the law, even going so far as to withhold exculpatory evidence? And what exactly happened to him?

As if any of us needed reminding as to why Phill Kline was as horrible a choice for Johnson County District Attorney as he was for Kansas Attorney General, Justin Kendall of the Pitch has a story about how in just a few short months in office Phill Kline and/or his dream team of Eric Rucker, Stephen Maxwell and company have:

1. Lost (through firings or resignations) 18 of the 32 prosecutors that were in the office when Kline started, replacing these veteran prosecutors with attorneys who have limited experience and "checkered pasts", including Supreme Court censures for misconduct
2. Cut all manner of deals with violent criminals that allowed them to get little or no jail time
3. Botched dozens of cases as a result of prosecutors not knowing what they're doing, including letting a defendant facing a third DUI charge go free because a prosecutor failed to offer evidence of the previous convictions - evidence that was in the file
4. Failed to show up at a parole hearing for a convicted murderer
5. Allegedly planted eavesdropping equipment around the DA's office
6. Refused to cooperate in an investigation into allegations of sex discrimination

The first story in the article is the least important, but the most telling. Kline cut a secret deal with one of his long-time supporters, Scott Hattrup, promising Hattrup a job as a prosecutor if Hattrup pulled out of the DA's race. Hattrup held up his end of the bargain. Kline didn't.

Just another reminder that, regardless of what he says, Phill Kline's top priority was, is and will always be Phill Kline.

The Dimwit D.A. (Pitch)