OPINION
4A
T HE
D AILY A STORIAN
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015
Only the shadow knows
Other
Clintonistas
emails she had coughed
up when pressed, noting:
dismissed the allegorical
“I want the public to see
shadow as “put-a-bunny-
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
my email.”
$6+,1*721
² in-the-pot crazy.”
Less true words were
Shanks
said
it
was
“like
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
Somewhere in Smithsonian
never spoken.
an ice pick going through
storage sits a portrait of Bill my back” when he learned
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
Schmidt’s scoop fol-
Clinton with two odd features: He that his portrait was “ex-
lowed The Wall Street
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
Journal revelation that at
is standing next to a shadow meant iled to the dark recesses”
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
least 60 companies that
in
2009.
On
a
visit
to
the
WR FRQMXUH 0RQLFD /HZLQVN\¶V
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
lobbied the State Depart-
museum a year and a half
Maureen
blue dress, and he is not wearing ago, he heard a docent tell-
ment when Hillary was in
SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager
Dowd
charge had funneled more
his gold wedding ring.
ing a tour group that the
than $26 million to the
As we have been reminded by Clintons put the kibosh on
Clinton
Foundation.
the
painting.
a recent wild cascade of stories,
Certainly, Hillary wants a lot
+H DVNHG .LP 6DMHW QRZ GLUHF-
everything about the Clintons is WRU RI WKH 1DWLRQDO 3RUWUDLW *DOOHU\ of control. She has spent a lifetime
FRQYROXWHG1RWKLQJLVVLPSOHHYHQ DQG VKH FRQ¿UPHG KLV GDUNHVW IHDUV cleaning up messes sparked by her
a celebratory portrait.
in an email, saying that they took it overweening desire for control and
1HOVRQ 6KDQNV SLFNHG E\ &OLQ- down because the Clintons disliked her often out-of-control mate. She
WRQWRGRKLVSRUWUDLWIRUWKH1DWLRQ- it. But, in response to a query, Sa- always feared that her emails could
al Portrait Gallery, revealed to the MHWDGPLWWHGWKDWVKHZDV³UHSHDWLQJ become fodder for critics, and now
Philadelphia Daily News that he had unfounded gossip,” according to a they have.
Everyone is looking for signs in
used a blue dress on a mannequin to spokeswoman, and insisted that the
how Hillary approaches 2016 to see
evoke the shadow of the Lewinsky painting is merely in rotation.
scandal in the portrait.
Shortly after the art imbroglio whether she’s learned lessons from
I called the 77-year-
broke, an email imbro- past trouble. But the minute this sto-
aving a boat repair yard at a Port at the mouth of the old artist to ask about his
glio broke. The Times’ ry broke, she went back to the bun-
Clinton
devilish
punking.
Michael Schmidt re- ker, even though she had known for
Columbia River makes sense. That’s why it was part
“It’s an extra little kick
ported that, as secretary months that the Republicans knew
of the Marine Services Center, which the Port Commission going on in the painting,” Inc. can
of state, Hillary did not about the account. The usual hatch-
adopted as its strategic plan in 2001. That plan was amended he said. “It was a bit hu- tough it out SUHVHUYH KHU RI¿FLDO FRU- ets — Philippe Reines, David Brock,
morous, but there was
respondence on a gov- Lanny Davis and Sidney Blumenthal
in 2010 to accommodate log exports.
also a sort of authenticity and even
ernment server and ex- — got busy.
Suddenly Port management is
In the short run, Knight is to it. To do a Pollyanna,
The Clintons don’t sparkle with
clusively used a private
email account. She used honesty and openness. Between his
in a hurry to dismantle the boat mortgaging his personal credibility basically meaningless, make stuff
neutral
server linked lordly appetites and her queenly
yard, which was established with on a Port Commission rationale symbolically
disappear. a to private
painting
of
somebody
that
her
Chappaqua
home, prerogatives, you always feel as if
considerable investment.
that lacks substance. Knight
KDVKDGDSRZHUIXOLQÀX-
only turning over cher- there’s something afoot. Everything
Edward Stratton’s Monday story needs to remember that the Port’s ence on society is really
ry-picked messages in needs to be a secret, from the Rose
reported the Port’s reasons for this dysfunction over many years was copping out.” He said that Clinton’s December at the State Department’s Law Firm records that popped up in
a White House closet two years after
move. They mainly have to do with there before he got here. Many of lack of a wedding band has no ulte- request.
Given the paranoid/legalese per- they were subpoenaed to the formu-
alleged requests from the Department us simply aren’t inclined to believe ULRU PHDQLQJ QRWLQJ ³, MXVW IRUJRW
of Environmental Quality.
the commission. Knight knows that the ring.” But Clinton aides weren’t spective that permeates Clintonland, lation of her health care plan.
Yet the Clintons always act as
buying it.
this made sense: It’s hard to request
The problem is that Port Executive WKH 3RUW¶V ¿QDQFLDO GRFXPHQWV DUH
+H VDLG ZKHQ WKH RPLVVLRQ ¿UVW emails from an account you don’t though it’s bad form when you bring
Director Jim Knight’s version of unreliable.
made news after the portrait was un- know exists. And your own server up their rule-bending. They want us
the commission’s reasoning falls
This move to eliminate the board veiled in 2006, Hillary Clinton sent can shield you from subpoenas and WRFRPSDUWPHQWDOL]HMXVWDVWKH\GR
apart upon cross examination. That repair facility is akin to the Port him “a lovely little note saying don’t other requests. If you want records to connect the dots that form a pret-
interrogation took place last week. &RPPLVVLRQ¶V DERUWLYH WD[ RQ ¿VK ZRUU\DERXWLWWKLVLVMXVWDWHPSHVW from the Clinton server, you have to ty picture and leave the other dots
¿JKWIRUWKHP&OLQWRQ,QFFDQWRXJK alone.
Knight was challenged by other Port moving across Port docks. They in a teapot.”
If you’re aspiring to be the sec-
In a blog post last week, Eugénie it out and even make stuff disappear.
tenants: Greg Morrill of Bergerson DUH ERWK DLPHG DW PRYLQJ ¿VK ¿VK Bisulco, a Clinton administration Instead of warning the secretary that ond president in the family, why is it
Construction, Kurt Englund of processing and maritime-related staffer who led the search team for she could be violating regulations, so hard to be straight and direct and
Englund Marine & Industrial Supply services away from the Port in favor a White House portrait artist, said it her aides fetishized her clintonemail. stand for something? Why can’t you
and Andrew Bornstein or Bornstein of cargo and the longshoremen who wasn’t Shanks’ attempt to put in “a com account as a status symbol. MXVWEHXSULJKWDQGVWHDG\DQGJRRG"
Given all the mistakes they’ve
moral compass” that grated. (The Chelsea took on the pseudonym Di-
Seafoods.
EHQH¿WIURPWKDW
made, why do they keep making
Clintons didn’t even know about ane Reynolds.
In a nutshell, the Port of Astoria
In the long run, it would be stupid that.) Bisulco said it was that the
1HDU PLGQLJKW RQ :HGQHVGD\ them? Why do they somehow nev-
is not under an ultimatum to shut of the Port to abandon its boatyard. portrait made Clinton look like “a Hillary tweeted that she had asked er do anything that doesn’t involve
down the boatyard. There is a way It made sense as part of the Marine disheveled Ted Koppel.”
the State Department to release the shadows?
to respond to the DEQ and not break Services Center concept. It will
the bank.
always make sense.
Founded in 1873
By MAUREEN DOWD
New York Times News Service
W
Boat facility should
not be dismantled
H
Port of Astoria’s rationale
doesn’t pass the sniff test
Race, history, a president, a bridge
Get used to warmer,
A
wet winters
By CHARLES M. BLOW
New York Times News Service
R
eady or not, here it comes:
2015 is shaping up to be a
VQHDN SHHN DW 3DFL¿F 1RUWKZHVW
weather patterns expected to
become completely normal as this
century moves forward.
The weather is turning misty
again this week and we undoubtedly
still have plenty of storms ahead this
year, and long into the future. But
this extraordinary winter of sunny
days, warm temperatures but still-
ample rainfall is being described
as quite similar to what we and our
children can expect every year by
2050 or so.
Most local residents are likely
to cheer this news. Astoria and its
environs have been singled out as
having the worst weather in the
PDLQODQG 86 E\ VRPH GH¿QLWLRQV
— foggy, windy, wet and capricious.
We who live here and love it may
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RIXVZRXOGREMHFWWRKDYLQJURXWLQH
stretches of delightful winter sun.
An animation on astrophysicist
1HLO GH*UDVVH 7\VRQ¶V UHFHQW
television series Cosmos: A
Spacetime
Odyssey
showed
many years of global temperature
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,W ZDV VWULNLQJ WKDW WKH 3DFL¿F
1RUWKZHVW &RDVW FHQWHUHG KHUH ²
basically the geographical zone
sometimes called Cascadia — is
predicted to be an oasis of moderate
weather in a world that will be getting
more and more uncomfortable.
Lucky us, right? Well, kind of.
There was considerable regional
news commentary last week about
the lack of mountain snowpack and
the growing potential for a summer
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Some of this will have direct impacts
here. In particular, lack of Cascade
Mountains snow will mean warmer
water in salmon-spawning beds —
something that will hurt reproduction
success — and lower, warmer rivers
ZLOOLPSDFWWKHPLJUDWLRQRI¿VKWRDQG
from spawning grounds. Three and
four years from now, depending on
ocean conditions, this is likely to mean
IHZHU VDOPRQ IRU ¿VKHUPHQ 7KLV
in turn argues for ample funding for
GLUHFWHGQHWSHQ¿VKHULHVOLNHWKHRQHV
in Youngs Bay and Deep River, Wash.;
these salmon that return to Columbia
estuary bays and tributaries will be far
less impacted by drought upriver.
Around here, snowpack in the
Coast Range is sometimes a helpful
natural reservoir for a while in the
spring, but our ambient temperatures
and rainfall mean that if we want
to store water for use between July
and September, we must engineer it
ourselves. Though lower Columbia
residents have a well-founded
suspicion of dams and reservoirs,
we wouldn’t be remiss in at least
starting to brainstorm possibilities
for additional water-storage capacity.
Wet
weather
and
cool
temperatures that have long tortured
local sun lovers are well on their way
to becoming high-value assets. In
coming decades, population growth
could be the biggest local impact we
see from discombobulations in the
weather. Whether it’s extreme heat
in the Southwest or extreme winter
FROGLQWKH1RUWKHDVWRXUFRQGLWLRQV
are highly enviable in comparison.
This reality increasingly is coming
to the attention of outsiders.
Besides water storage, we must
pay more attention to development
on shorelines, protecting key resource
lands for industry, residential use,
habitat and recreation. Growth can very
quickly gain momentum, as we can
see based on recently disclosed Coast
Guard expansion studies and Tongue
Point development wishes. We can
endeavor to shape our communities’
destiny, or else allow circumstances to
take their own course.
Our area’s active and engaged
citizens will clearly prefer to
maintain control of our own life raft
in these risky times.
s our van in the presidential
motorcade reached the crest
of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Ala., and began the descent
toward the thousands of waiting
faces and waving arms of those
who had come to commemorate
the
50th
anniversary
of “Bloody
Sunday,” the
gravity of that
place seized
me, pushing
out the breath
and rousing
the wonder.
Charles
The mind
Blow
imagines the
horror of that distant day: the scrum
of bodies and the cloud of gas,
the coughing and trampling, the
screaming and wailing, the batons
colliding with bones, the opening of
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In that moment I understood what
was necessary in President Barack
Obama’s address: to balance celebra-
tion and solemnity, to honor the heroes
of the past but also to motivate the ac-
tivists of the moment, to acknowledge
how much work had been done but to
remind the nation that that work was
not complete.
(I, along with a small group of oth-
HUMRXUQDOLVWVKDGEHHQLQYLWHGE\WKH
White House to accompany the presi-
dent to Selma and have a discussion
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About an hour north of where the
president spoke was Shelby County,
whose suit against the Department of
Justice the Supreme Court had used
to gut the same Voting Rights Act that
Bloody Sunday helped to pass.
His speech also came after sever-
al shootings of unarmed black men,
whose deaths caused national protests
and racial soul-searching.
It came on the heels of the Justice
Department’s report on Ferguson, Mis-
souri, which found pervasive racial bias
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against African-Americans.
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that 4 out of 10 Americans thought race
relations during the Obama presidency
had gotten worse, while only 15 percent
thought they had gotten better.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
President Barack Obama, center, walks as he holds hands with Amelia
Boynton Robinson, who was beaten during “Bloody Sunday,” as they
and the first family and others including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., left of
Obama, walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.
Fear and restrictive laws are creeping back
into our culture and our politics.
The president had to bend the past
around so it pointed toward the future.
To a large degree, he accomplished that
goal. The speech was emotional and
evocative. People cheered. Some cried.
And yet there seemed to me some-
thing else in the air: a lingering — or
gathering — sense of sadness, a frustra-
tion born out of perpetual incompletion,
an anger engendered by the threat of re-
gression, a pessimism about a present
and future riven by worsening racial
understanding and interplay.
To truly understand the Bloody
6XQGD\LQÀHFWLRQSRLQW²DQGWKHFLY-
il rights movement as a whole — one
must appreciate the preceding century.
After the Civil War, blacks were
incredibly populous in Southern states.
They were close to, or exceeded, half
the population in Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi, Louisi-
ana and South Carolina.
During Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th
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abolishing slavery, granting citizenship
and equal protection to former slaves
and extending the vote to black men. As
a result, “some 2,000 African-Americans
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the way up to the U.S. Senate,” according
to the television channel History.
This was an assault on the traditional
holders of power in the South, who re-
sponded aggressively. The structure of
Jim Crow began to form. The Ku Klux
Klan was born, whose tactics would put
the Islamic State group to shame.
Then in the early 20th century came
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which millions of Southern blacks would
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This left a smaller black population
in Southern states that had developed
and perfected a system to keep those
who remained suppressed and separate.
Here, the civil rights movement and
Bloody Sunday played out.
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and equality, but in a way it was also
about power — the renewed fear of di-
minished power, the threat of expanded
power, the longing for power denied.
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years following the movement to un-
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coming, one that again threatens tradi-
tional power: the browning of America.
According to the Census Bureau,
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be 57 percent of the population in 2060.
In response, fear and restrictive laws
are creeping back into our culture and
our politics — not always explicitly or
violently, but in ways whose effects are
similarly racially arrayed. Structural
inequities — economic, educational —
are becoming more rigid, and systemic
biases harder to eradicate. But this time
the threat isn’t regional and racially bi-
nary but national and multifaceted.
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As the president told a crowd in
South Carolina Friday, “Selma is not
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He continued, “Selma is now.”