FEBRUARY 9, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Trump avoids killing
State of Union buzz
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
There is a pattern to State of the
Union addresses: The president de-
clares the state of the nation is glowing;
the opposition party reacts with skep-
ticism; and then the two
sides fi ght over which
side won the night.
With President Don-
ald Trump there is an
additional factor: Will he
say or tweet something
so outrageous that he
kills the good buzz?
In other words, will
Twitter Trump step on
teleprompter Trump?
That the president gave a strong
performance last week is clear. A CBS
News poll found that 75 percent of
viewers approved of the speech—and
while supporters were more likely to
watch the annual report to the na-
tion than others, that margin is com-
fortably above the 46 percent of the
popular vote Trump won in 2016 and
suggests that many non-Trump voters
liked the speech.
It helped that Trump’s joint address
to Congress focused, not on Trump,
but Americans and their future.
Ken Khachigian, who served as
chief speechwriter to President Ron-
ald Reagan, gave Trump high marks.
The 80-minute speech, he said, was
effective. Trump “put to use the old-
est rule of communication, a picture is
worth a thousand words.”
Khachigian’s favorite moment
was when North Korean defector Ji
Seong-ho waved his crutches—made
for him by his father after a young Ji
passed out from hunger while stealing
coal from a train.
“The speech had a lot of substance
to it,” Khachigian added, and showed
a Trump with heart.
What’s more, Trump reached out
to Democrats and sought their sup-
port for a compromise measure to
extend President Barack Obama’s De-
ferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
or DACA, program. As a concession,
Trump offered a path to citizenship
to some 1.8 million undocumented
immigrants who came to the United
States as minors, through no fault of
their own.
To the right, Trump had conceded
a lot. Many DACA critics see a path
to citizenship as amnesty. Also, Trump
had offered that path to more than
twice the 800,000 undocumented im-
migrants initially covered by Obama’s
DACA—and that program was tem-
porary and paved no path to citizen-
ship.
In return, Trump argued Demo-
crats would have to support his three
pillars: funding for a border wall with
Mexico, limits on “chain migration”
to immediate family members and an
end to the diversity visa lottery system.
It was impossible to not notice the
Democrats’ cold reception to Trump’s
proposition.
The Black Caucus’ reaction to
Trump’s boasts about black
unemployment hitting “its
lowest rate ever recorded”
was underwhelming. Only
one caucus member ap-
plauded, and he stopped
when he saw no others join-
ing in.
“Why are @TheDemo-
crats not applauding job
growth, higher wages and
the drop in Latino and African-Amer-
ican unemployment?” tweeted poll-
ster Frank Luntz, a conservative who
has been critical of Trump.
Conservatives also broadcast pho-
tos of House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., scowling and sucking
on her teeth throughout the evening.
The next morning, Trump stayed
off Twitter.
Thursday morning, last week, he
returned to his favorite social media
platform with three tweets. The fi rst
chastised Democrats for not produc-
ing a single vote in favor of the GOP
tax bill. The second hit Pelosi for not
working with him on DACA.
The third tweet trumpeted Trump’s
belief that with 45.6 million viewers,
his fi rst State of the Union address had
“the highest number in history.” But
Trump was factually incorrect. Presi-
dents Barack Obama, George W. Bush
and Bill Clinton drew higher audi-
ence numbers than Trump for their
fi rst State of the Union addresses. But
then, the public has become inured to
Trump’s factual errors in his favor.
Later, at a speech to Republicans in
West Virginia, Trump pressed what he
saw as his new advantage—the posi-
tion where he appeared as a peace-
maker and his opposition came off as
belligerent and self-centered.
Trump noted, “And when I made
that statement the other night, there
was zero movement from the Dem-
ocrats. They sat there, stone cold, no
smile, no applause. You would have
thought that, on that one, they would
have, sort of, at least clapped a little bit.
Which tells you, perhaps, they’d rather
see us not do well than see our coun-
try do great.”
During the tenure of Presi-
dents Clinton and Obama, that was a
charge Democrats frequently lobbed
at GOP critics -- that they were root-
ing against a strong economy and
against the country. This week, the
table was turned.
The CBS News poll included more
bad news for Democrats: 43 percent
of Democrats approved of Trump’s
speech. No cause for applause there.
guest
opinion
(Creators Syndicate)
Trump wing of GOP is firmly in charge
By MICHAEL GERSON
According to House Speaker
Paul Ryan, the declassifi ed Devin
Nunes memo—alleging FBI mis-
conduct in the Russia investiga-
tion—is “not an indictment of the
FBI, of the Department of Justice.”
According to President Trump, the
memo shows how leaders at the FBI
“politicized the sacred investigative
process in favor of Dem-
ocrats” and “totally vin-
dicates ‘Trump’ in probe.”
Both men are deluded
or deceptive.
Releasing the memo
—while suppressing a
dissenting
assessment
from other members of
the House Intelligence
Committee—was clearly
intended to demonstrate that the
FBI is a wholly owned subsidiary
of the Democratic Party. The effort
ended in a pathetic fi zzle. Nunes’
brief, amateurish document failed
to demonstrate that FBI surveillance
was triggered solely or mainly by a
Democratic-funded dossier. But for
cherry-picking above and beyond
the call of duty, Nunes deserves his
own exhibit in the hackery hall of
fame. This was a true innovation: an
intelligence product created and re-
leased for the consumption of Fox
News.
Trump’s eager publication of the
memo was expected. Yet his action
crossed a line: from criticism of the
FBI to executive action designed to
undermine an ongoing investiga-
tion. Trump seems to be testing the
waters for direct action against the
FBI by testing the limits of what his
Republican followers will stomach.
So far, there are no limits.
With the blessing of Republican
leaders, the lickspittle wing of the
GOP is now fi rmly in charge. The
existence of reckless partisans such
as Nunes is hardly surprising. The
nearly uniform cowardice among
elected Republicans is staggering.
One is left wishing that Obam-
acare covered spine transplants. The
Republican-led Congress is now an
adjunct of the White House. The
White House is now an adjunct of
Trump’s chaotic will.
And what to make of Ryan? I
have been a consistent
defender of his good in-
tentions. But after the
17th time saying “He
knows better,” it dawns
that he may not. By his
recent actions, the speak-
er has provided political
cover for a weakening
of the constitutional or-
der. He has been used as
a tool while loudly insisting he is
not a tool. The way Ryan is headed,
history offers two possible verdicts:
Either he enabled an autocrat, or he
was intimidated by a fool. I believe
Ryan to be a good person. But the
greatest source of cynicism is not
the existence of corrupt people in
politics; it is good people who lose
their way.
The United States Congress is an
institution of great power. Accord-
ing to the Constitution, it can deny
jurisdiction to the Supreme Court.
It can remove the commander in
chief. But now it watches as Trump
makes the executive branch his
personal fi efdom. It stands by—or
cheers—as the president persecutes
law enforcement professionals for
the performance of their public du-
ties.
Why can’t Republican legislators
see the personal damage this might
cause? Trump has made a practice
of forcing people around him to
lower their standards and abandon
their ideals before turning against
them when their usefulness ends.
other
opinions
His servants are sucked dry of integ-
rity and dignity, then thrown away
like the rind of a squeezed orange.
Who does Trump’s bidding and has
his or her reputation enhanced? A
generation of Republicans will end
up writing memoirs of apology and
regret.
The political damage to the
GOP as the party of corruption and
cover-up should be obvious as well.
This is a rare case when the rats,
rather than deserting a sinking ship,
seemed determined to ride it all the
way down.
But it is damage to the con-
science that is hardest to repair. For
Republicans, what seemed like a
temporary political compromise is
becoming an indelible moral stain.
The Russia investigation is reveal-
ing a Trump universe in which ethi-
cal considerations did not (and do
not) fi gure at all. Who can imagine a
senior Trump campaign offi cial, say
Paul Manafort, or Donald Trump Jr.,
saying the words: “That would be
wrong”? Their degraded spirit has
now invaded the whole GOP. By
defending Trump’s transgressions,
by justifying his abuses, Republicans
are creating an atmosphere in which
corruption and cowardice thrive.
How can this course be cor-
rected? “You only have one politi-
cal death,” said the late Rep. John
Jacob Rhodes, R-Ariz., “but you
can choose when to use it.” Larger
showdowns—concerning the pos-
sible fi rings of special counsel Rob-
ert Mueller and Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein —now
seem likely. If there is nothing for
which Paul Ryan and other Repub-
lican leaders will risk their careers,
there is nothing in which they truly
believe.
(Washington Post Writers Group)
Staying in balance becomes harder and harder
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Homeostasis, as defi ned, refers to
the tendency of a body to maintain
a condition of balance or equilibri-
um within its internal environment,
even when faced with external
changes. It can also refer to a state
of psychological equilibrium when
tension or a troubling diffi culty has
been reduced or eliminated.
Looking back on my life recalls
many a time when my homeosta-
sis was fi ne-tuned and
when it didn’t work to
benefi t my physical and
mental well being. There
were instances where I
was out of sorts due to
employment matters as
well as others where my
personal life and people
in it were a lot less than
helpful to my emotional health.
Simply expressed, stresses and strains
from multiple sources have resulted
in good and bad consequences.
There have been examples from
political goings-on that provided
me cheer and those that appeared
to threaten me and the homeostasis
of my country. In my lifetime, ex-
amples that stood out to infl uence
how I felt and afforded sure-foot-
edness were the election of poli-
ticians I could believe in. To the
contrary, I think of how upset and
even despondent I was as a young
man when I learned that President
John Kennedy was assassinated
while I was heartened indeed by
the leadership of President Lyndon
Johnson to establish Medicare and
the Voting Rights Act, both in 1965.
There are, as well, events from
U.S, history considered by Ameri-
cans as positive and negative. With-
out a great leap of imagination for
what came before my time in terms
of the breadth and depth of senti-
ments and reactions on both sides
of any argument, it seems possible
that no event stands any taller than
the threat to the American democ-
racy that is underway at the pres-
ent time. I regard that threat as the
one looming over us as directed an
guided by the Trump Administra-
tion and those Repub-
licans in Congress who
appear as his servile sup-
porters and blind to his
dangerous, nation-threat-
ening shortcomings.
Just look at the con-
sequence of giving up
our leadership in world
trade: China is stepping
in to fi ll the void. What about the
prospects for world peace through
nuclear war avoidance: We have
abandoned it and there is no na-
tion like the United States to stand
in the way of a rogue nation. Then
there’s the fate of a planet whose
atmosphere is reaching critical mass
in terms of its ability to support hu-
man life here: The world is becom-
ing an every-nation-for-itself in the
absence of the U.S. leading the way.
These and other critical issues are
now left to others without the will
or way to guide the world toward
positive developments.
Also, consider what is happen-
ing and not happening at home.
We’ve thrived and succeeded as
a nation due to the infl ux of im-
migrants: The Trump Administra-
tion wants all immigration to cease.
Members of the Republican Party
in majority numbers have pledged
gene
h.
mcintyre
their political lives to a president
who only cares for himself and his
family even though law-breaking
profi ts and accumulating more
wealth are rather obviously his their
single-minded objective. Further,
Trump abandons our democratic
institutions and laws for a new or-
der of things that strongly suggests
a duplication of autocratic Russia.
Then, too, among so much that’s
highly disturbing is Trump’s med-
dling in the U.S. Department of
Justice, its CIA and the FBI di-
visions, while seemingly too of-
ten further encouraging Russian
interventions here.
Trump plays to his base every
day by tweeting his latest rant and
rage. We are told that his base will
cling to this president no matter
what he says or does while Trump
has told us that he believes he can
do anything he wants to do without
consequence. After all, he views
himself as a celebrity who can grab
what he wants to grab and take
what he wants to take. Homeosta-
sis is not survivable in the U.S. un-
der a president who has shown us
that he does not honor and respect
the Constitution, the separation of
powers, the laws of the land, and
our valued traditions.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
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