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PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 19, 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Politics is an Olympian endeavor By E.J. DIONNE JR. Simone Manuel, Ka- tie Ledecky and Simone Biles will not be eligible to run for president until 2032, although Michael Phelps hits 35 years old in 2020. After watching these Olympians display so many traits we admire—persistence, disci- pline, grace, goal orientation, resil- ience, and inner strength—perhaps we should consider drafting one of them some day. It is both a blessing and a curse that the Summer Olympics happen during the election year. The bless- ings are obvious. Especially in this campaign, it is a relief to watch a display of American talent that truly brings the country together. It’s a nice change of pace to see partici- pants judged by objective standards (with all the caveats that gymnastics scoring invites). It is good to see these men and women achieve be- cause they absolutely earned it. And during a campaign in which one of the issues is whether the United States has lost its “greatness,” a glance at the Olympic medal board suggests otherwise while a look at the members of Team USA suggests how our diversity is part of our strength. There is, fi nally, a lesson for po- litical commentators in watching our sports colleagues do their work. I’ll always treasure a 2004 NPR es- say by the legendary sports writer Frank Deford pushing back against the idea that political writing is too much like sports writing in focusing on the “horse race.” Beyond pointing out that our never-ending election seasons more resemble pennant chases than horse races (which “last about a min- ute and half ”), Deford argued that sports journalists are typically more straightforward in assessing the good and the bad in their realm. There’s no pressure for false bal- ance, and he sees sports journalists as better than we political scribes at “probing, questioning authority, not being afraid to criticize.” But Deford also suggested why the straightforward joys of sports we’re currently celebrating can ac- tually blind us to the nobility, or at least the extreme diffi culty, of poli- tics. He admitted that “it’s a great deal easier to shoot your mouth off about whether the coach called the right plays in the fourth quarter than about how to conduct a war.” No kidding. Politics is fun- damentally different from other spheres because it is about reconcil- ing sharply differing interests and people with fundamentally different goals and worldviews. As Bernard Crick argued in his classic book In Defense of Politics, demo- cratic politics is “a great and civilizing human activity” because it’s the way in which we seek to resolve our disputes without resorting to vio- lence. “Politics has rough manners,” he wrote, “but it is a very useful thing.” In sports, the goals are clear. In politics, much less so—partly be- cause, as the philosopher Isaiah Berlin taught us, there are compet- ing goods in life that are often ir- reconcilable. Your notion of liberty may be perfectly reasonable but it may well confl ict in profound ways with my equally reasonable ideas about equality. We can even disagree on the nature of commitments we claim to share. “We all declare for liberty,” Abraham Lincoln said, “but in using the same word, we do not all mean the same thing.” As for Deford’s example of a war, we can disagree not only on the tac- tics required to win it but also on whether it should be waged in the fi rst place. The 2016 campaign is one of the least uplifting examples of politics in our lifetimes. I place most of the blame for this on Donald Trump, al- though examples of campaigns that were universally regarded as uplift- ing are rare. Trump’s rise itself re- fl ects a deep cynicism about politics that we have allowed to fester. He praises himself for not being a “poli- tician,” even though that is exactly what he is. In his manipulation of resentments and his indifference to truth, he represents the worst traits we associate with the breed. But Trump is, fi nally, a symptom of our impatience with and disre- spect for the messy but essential work that politicians do -- and the fact that we are badly out of prac- tice when it comes to reconciling (as opposed to sharpening) our dif- ferences. I truly hope that our great Olym- pians consider joining the political fray down the road. But in the short run, we citizens and our leaders need to work as hard at the skills of self-rule as they do at their strokes, kicks, fl oor routines and overall fi t- ness. We admire them for respect- ing the integrity of what they do. We need the same attitude toward politics. e.j. dionne (Washington Group) Post Writers Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS NEWS EDITOR Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes Will drama win the debates? By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS The fi rst of three presidential debates won’t happen until Sept. 26. Nearly six weeks beforehand, I safely can make these predictions: Hillary Clinton will show up for all three, as her campaign announced this week. Donald Trump will show up, at least to most of them. He told Time, “I will absolutely do three debates”—although he noted he has “to see the conditions.” Most important, after each debate, the media will spend the next 24 to 48 hours debating what Trump really meant by his latest bizarre utterance and if that particular off-the-wall remark represents the last straw, sinking his campaign. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta rightly ribbed Trump for engaging “in shenanigans around these debates. It is not clear if he is trying to avoid debates, or merely toying with the press to create more drama.” In July, The Donald tweeted, “As usual, Hillary & the Dems are trying to rig the debates so 2 are up against major NFL games. Same as last time w/ Bernie. Unacceptable!” Not that he minded, but he made himself look silly. The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates had chosen the dates before Clinton won the nod and the NFL announced its schedule. Trump also claimed that the NFL complained to him in a letter— which the NFL denied. Trump also says that he wants “fair” moderators. Be it noted, when Trump talks about fairness, he means favorable to him. Yet in this ugly election season, it’s voters who should wonder if the debate schedule is fair to the electorate. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows that 61 percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, while 53 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton. A majority of voters don’t like either candidate. Is it fair that Americans could be stuck watching a face-off between two highly unlikables? There is hope. The debate commission will look at the polls after Labor Day to see if a third- party candidate has hit 15 percent support in fi ve unnamed national polls. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has exceeded 10 percent in other views two polls this month—more than twice the showing of Green Party nominee Jill Stein. Commission co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf recently told CNBC the panel would “consider giving an inch” to an outsider—if, for example, a candidate hit an average of 14.5 in polls with a margin of error in the 3 percent range. Politico reported that the panel told sponsors to prepare for the possibility there will be a third lectern. That is the best presidential campaign news I’ve heard all year. You will hear calls for the panel to ditch its participation criteria and admit Johnson and Stein. But, as Pace University political science professor David Caputo told me, small tweaks are OK, but if the commission dumps its rules to accommodate a low-polling Johnson, “I think it would be very diffi cult” to say no to Trump’s demands for, say, time slots that are likely to draw top ratings or “fair” moderators. Meanwhile, if you want Johnson on the stage with Clinton and Trump, stay by your phone. You never know when a pollster might call. (Creators Syndicate) Earning millions while others suffer Review the particulars of just one Oregon professional team of sixteen players, the Portland Trail Blazers. They will take part in 82 games dur- ing regular season play between Oc- tober and sometime in April, or about a half year’s work time, unless they win enough games to enter the play- offs, which end in 2017 with an NBA championship, a status the Trail Blazers have not achieved since 1977. Nev- ertheless, during the next four years of playing a game for profi t, those 16 Blazers will take home, in contractual salaries, about $550,000,000. But do these and other professional athletes deserve that kind of money? One opinion, mine, believes the an- swer is in the negative. Here’s why: In the U,S. of former times, salaries and wages were based on the value of one’s work. If we were still that nation nowadays, grounded in reasonableness, all members of this society would be paid according to the economic im- portance and value to society of their job. Consider the profession of being a school teacher. Although we Ameri- cans argue about everything, it would seem we can agree that one of the most important occupations here is teaching. Why? Because our very future depends on the education of our youth. Yet, many American teaches are paid less than two cur- rent examples among thou- sands of those possible: the amount of money Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James or Golden State Warriors’ Ste- phen Curry. For each basket they make, they receive pay equal to the annual salary of many an American public and private school teacher. Then there’s the president of the United States, who a lot of us feel is the most impor- tant American citizen. The president makes decisions ev- ery day that affect the entire world but earns a comparably paltry (to most professional athletes) $400,000 per year. Meanwhile, the nation’s gover- nors are paid as low as Maine’s at $73,000 and as high as Pennsylvania’s at $187,256; Oregon’s gov- ernor is currently paid $93,600 per year. Even unproven and possible early washouts during their fi rst year in the NBA (and other professional sports like the Major League Baseball and National Footnball League) re- ceive more money than the president and every U.S. governor. Firefi ghters and police offi cers risk their lives for a mere fraction of sports stars’ salaries. American military personnel leave their families for as- signments overseas in war-torn lands and sometimes never return. Those lost in battle are briefl y recognized for their sacrifi ce. Meanwhile, Blazer players like Damien Lillard and C.J. McCollum are considered heroes and paid in one year for playing a game what many an American may earn in an entire lifetime. Meanwhile, some of those Americans die, protecting and serving us. gene h. mcintyre The Trail Blazers have had some very poorly self-disciplined players on board. These men have shown those who look up to them that a person can succeed at making big money and remain in hero status to youth even though they are lousy citizens. Lately, if Blazers are behaving badly we know little or nothing about their esca- pades by way of cagey spokespersons. It quite honestly grieves me to be aware that there are so many social problems in Portland and through- out Oregon that money could help to relieve as, for just one example, pro- viding shelter and food for those many who don’t want to live homeless. If Oregon’s citizens would boycott pro- fessional games until salaries were re- duced to reasonable levels, we could do so much better than we do now at addressing our multiple social ills. As long as thousands of us are willing to spend hundreds of dollars to watch a few gifted athletes play ball while starving kids in wet clothes, without a place to stay overnight, cry outside in an old car that’s their home, we can never claim any longer to be a moral society. (Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap- pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)
