OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2016
In the matter of Paul Ryan
Founded in 1873
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Molly J. Smith /Statesman-Journal via AP
Gov. Kate Brown outlined her 2016 policy agenda at a press confer-
ence at the State Capitol in Salem in January.
Why won’t
Gov. Brown show
the gumption to lead?
Governors are supposed to be leaders
I
f a politician stays in Washington, D.C., long enough you
master the art of saying something while saying nothing.
The congressman from Eastern Oregon, Greg Walden, is a
master of the articulate non-statement.
Governors cannot afford person. The topic was a leg-
such sleight of hand. After all, islative proposal to have
they are supposed to be lead- public employees contrib-
ers. We are also closer to them, ute to their retirement, as pri-
physically. Congressmen can vate sector employees do.
go to Washington to hide. We wrote about the Public
Employees
Retirement
Governors cannot.
It is unfortunate to see System train wreck that is
a penchant for non-speak coming for school districts
develop so early in our Gov. and city governments. Here
was our response to Brown’s
Kate Brown.
Our sister newspaper the ambivalence.
“Gov. Brown’s response is
Capital Press sought to learn
the position of Gov. Brown a disappointment, because it
on the disputed proposal to contains no leadership. She
create a national monument sounds more like a lawyer
in Malheur County. The or a news anchor — stating
proposed monument is the the obvious — than a gov-
Owyhee Canyonlands wil- ernor. Where is Brown’s
derness and conservation amazement that Oregon is
the only state that requires
area.
Wrote the CP: “Here’s no employee participation in
what (Brown’s) people said retirement funding? Where is
her anger about the pending
she said:
“While this is ultimately horror in which school dis-
a federal decision, I have tricts and cities will be deci-
heard from many Oregonians mated to pay for a phantom
with strong views about the workforce of retirees?”
We then asked the ques-
Owyhee. There’s agreement
as to the beauty and unique- tion, “Why won’t Gov.
ness of the Canyonlands and Brown lead Oregon on
disagreement over whether a PERS?
On
the
Owyhee
monument designation can
best ensure those characteris- Canyonlands, she does not
tics will be enjoyed for future have to lead. But acting like
generations. I have commu- she is an umpire in the middle
nicated those viewpoints to of the tennis court is an insult
federal administration offi - to Oregonians’ intelligence.
Brown is, of course, wait-
cials and will be closely
following this issue in the ing for the election to be over.
But our guess is that even then
months ahead.”
Huh? Brown conveyed the she will not lead Oregonians
persona of a lawyer or TV if she is asked to be at odds
news anchor. She does not with public employee unions
present herself as a leader, as or the liberal Portland center
of her electorate.
a governor.
Even prior to her
On Jan. 7, this page made
a similar observation about fi rst election to offi ce,
a comment that was relayed Brown is becoming a big
to us by Gov. Brown’s media disappointment.
W
ASHINGTON — The
morning after, the nation
awakes asking: What have we
done?
Both parties seem intent on throw-
ing the election away. The Democrats,
running against a man with high-
est-ever negatives, are poised to
nominate a candidate with the sec-
ond-highest-ever negatives. Hillary
Clinton started with every possible
advantage — money, experience,
name recognition, residual goodwill
from her husband’s successful 1990s
— yet could not put away until this
last week an obscure, fringy, social-
ist backbencher in a country uniquely
allergic to socialism.
Bernie Sanders did have one advan-
tage. He had something to say. She had
nuthin’. Her victory speech was a pud-
ding without a theme for a campaign
without a cause. After 14 months, she
still can’t get past the famous question
asked of Ted Kennedy in 1979: Why do
you want to be president?
So whom do the Republicans put
up? They had 17 candidates. Any of
a dozen could have taken down the
near-fatally weak Clinton, unloved,
untrusted, living under the shadow of
an FBI investigation.
Instead, they nominate Donald
Trump — conspiracy theorist (from
Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth to Ted
Cruz’s father’s involvement with Lee
Harvey Oswald), fabulist (from his
own invented opposition to the Iraq
War and the Libya intervention to the
“thousands and thousands” of New Jer-
sey Muslims celebrating 9/11), admirer
of strongmen (from Vladimir Putin to
the butchers of Tiananmen).
His outrageous provocations have
been brilliantly sequenced so that the
many conservatives for hav-
shock of the new extin-
ing said he would vote for
guishes the memory of the
Trump.
last. Though perhaps not
Yet what was surpris-
his most recent — his gra-
ing was not Ryan’s ever-
tuitous attack on a “Mexi-
so-tepid semi-endorsement,
can” federal judge (born and
which was always inevita-
bred in Indiana) for inherent
ble and unavoidable — can
bias because of his ethnic-
the highest elected GOP
ity. Textbook racism, averred
offi cial be at war during a
Speaker Paul Ryan. Even
general election with the
Trump acolyte and possible
Charles
party’s democratically cho-
running mate Newt Gingrich
Krauthammer
sen presidential candidate?
called it inexcusable.
— but his initial refusal to
Trump promptly doubled
First,
endorse Trump when, after
down, expanding the uni-
the Indiana primary, nearly
verse of the not-to-be-trusted
dare
everyone around him was
among us by adding Amer-
falling mindlessly, some
ican Muslims to the list of to say
shamelessly, into line.
those who might be inher-
That was surpris-
ently biased.
that
ing. Which is why Ryan’s
Yet Trump is the party’s
the
refusal to immediately fol-
chosen. He won the primary
low suit created such a sen-
contest fair and square. The
sation. It also created, delib-
people have spoken. What people
the time and space
to do?
aren’t erately,
for non-Trumpites to hold
First, dare to say that the
the line. Ryan was legiti-
people aren’t always right. always
mizing resistance to the new
Surely Republicans admit
right. regime, giving it safe harbor
the possibility. Or do they
in the House, even as resist-
believe the people chose
rightly in electing Obama? Twice. ers were being relentlessly accused of
Historical examples of other coun- treason for “electing Hillary.”
In the end, Ryan called an armistice.
tries choosing even more wrongly are
numerous and tragic. The people’s What was he to do? Oppose and resign?
will deserves respect, not necessarily And then what? What would remain of
conservative leadership in the GOP?
affi rmation.
I sympathize with the dilemma of And if he created a permanent split in
Republican leaders reluctant to affi rm. the party, he’d be setting up the GOP’s
Many are as appalled as I am by Trump, entire conservative wing as scapegoat if
but they don’t have the freedom I do Trump loses in November.
Ryan had no good options. He chose
to say, as I have publicly, that I can-
not imagine ever voting for him. They the one he felt was least damaging to
have unique party and institutional the conservative cause to which he has
devoted his entire adult life.
responsibilities.
I wouldn’t have done it but I’m not
For some, that meant endorsing
Trump in the belief that they might be House speaker. He is a practicing pol-
able to contain, constrain, guide and itician who has to calculate the conse-
perhaps even educate him. To my mind, quences of what he does. That deserves
this thinking has always been hope- at least some understanding.
One day, we shall all have to account
lessly misbegotten but not necessarily
for what he did and what we said in this
— nor in all cases — venal.
Which brings us to the matter of scoundrel year. For now, we each have
Paul Ryan, now being excoriated by our conscience to attend to.
Orlando and Trump’s America
By ROGER COHEN
New York Times News Service
O
mar Mateen, the Florida
shooter who had pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State,
just ushered Donald Trump to
the White House, Britain out of
the European Union, Marine Le
Pen to the French presidency,
and the world into a downward
spiral of escalating violence.
Aged 29, Mateen is the Gavrilo
Princip of the early 21st century, the
young man who ripped up an old,
decaying political order. Like the
19-year-old Bosnian Serb national-
ist whose bullets ignited World War
I, Mateen has set a spark to a time of
infl ammable anger.
Of course, these somber imagin-
ings may prove to be no more than that.
Mateen has not yet changed the world;
he may never.
But there is no question that the larg-
est mass shooting in U.S. history comes
at a time of particular unease. In both the
United States and Europe, political and
economic frustrations have produced a
groundswell against the status quo and
an apparent readiness to make a leap in
the dark. Washington and Brussels have
become bywords for paralysis.
Trump and “Brexit” represent action
— any action — to shake things up.
They are, to their supporters, the come-
uppance smug elites deserve.
On top of this, and feeding this,
Islam is in epochal crisis. Its Sunni
and Shiite branches are mired in vio-
lent confrontation. Its adjustment to the
modern world has proved faltering and
agonized enough to produce a metas-
tasizing strain of violent anti-Western
jihadi beliefs to which Mateen — like
the San Bernardino shooters — was
apparently susceptible.
That he shot revelers in a gay club
suggests once again that Islam and sex-
uality constitute a particularly com-
bustible realm. Liberal Western sexual
mores are the most troubling affront
to a certain strain of Islam. The resul-
tant confrontation incubates explosive
violence.
It is 12 years since Theo van Gogh
have access to the weapons
was murdered in Amster-
they need to do their worst.
dam by a Dutch-Moroccan
Despite having been inves-
Muslim jihadi for making a
tigated twice in recent years
movie about the treatment
by the FBI for possible ties
of women in Islam; and now
to terrorism, Mateen was
homosexuals at the Pulse
able to walk into a Florida
club in Orlando, Florida,
gun dealership recently, and
are targeted by a U.S. citi-
acquire a “long gun” and a
zen of Afghan descent who,
pistol. This, by any reason-
it seems, had also found
able standard, is madness.
in Islamic extremism the
Roger
The AR-15 assault
ideological answer to his
Cohen
weapon used by
troubles.
Mateen was also the
It is poisonous to
America is
weapon used by the
blame all the world’s
San Bernardino shoot-
1.6 billion Muslims
the perfect
ers. The former NRA
for this crisis of their
president,
David
religion.
Trump’s
setting
Keene, once described
self-congratula-
the weapons as the
tory reiteration of his
for “lone
“gun liberals love to
call for a temporary
wolf” ISIS
hate.” It is in fact the
ban on non-Ameri-
rifl e that illustrates
can Muslims enter-
followers
why lax U.S. gun laws
ing the United States
make American lives
exemplifi es his vio-
because
cheap. The laws are an
lence-tinged politics
aberration.
of division. Michael
they have
President Barack
Oren, the former
access to
Obama described the
Israeli ambassador
shooting as “an act
to the United States,
of terror and an act of
was quoted on Twit- the weapons
hate.” He made clear
ter hours after the
they need
his disapproval of
massacre as saying:
gun laws. He called
“If I were Trump, I’d
to do their
for solidarity. He said
emphasize the Mus-
worst.
nothing about ISIS, or
lim name, Omar Sad-
the way the Islamic
diqui Mateen. This
changes race.” Later, he said Trump State’s hold on territory in Syria and Iraq
would do this, not that he had recom- reinforces the charismatic potency of its
ideological appeal, disseminated from
mended it.
It is, however, also dangerous to that base through the internet.
He also said this: “To actively do
ignore or belittle the potency of ISIS
ideology, the core role it has played in nothing is a decision as well.”
Yes, to have actively done noth-
recent violence from Paris to Califor-
nia, and the link between that ideol- ing in Syria over more than fi ve years
ogy and the broader crisis of Islam. The of war — so allowing part of the coun-
favored phrase of the Obama admin- try to become an Islamic State strong-
istration in addressing this scourge — hold, contributing to a massive refugee
“violent extremism” — is vague to the crisis in Europe, acquiescing to slaugh-
point of evasive meaninglessness. Yes, ter and displacement on a devastating
jihadi terrorists are “violent extrem- scale, undermining America’s word in
ists” but calling them that is like calling the world, and granting open season for
Nazism a reaction to German humil- President Vladimir Putin of Russia to
iation in World War I: true but wholly strut his stuff — amounts to the great-
est foreign policy failure of the Obama
inadequate.
Mateen demonstrated again just administration.
It has made the world far more dan-
how potent the mix of ISIS and
National Rifl e Association ideology is. gerous. I hope for the best but fear the
America is the perfect setting for “lone victory of the politics of anger in Amer-
wolf” ISIS followers because they ica and Europe.
Where to write
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing-
ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225-
0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District
offi ce: 12725 SW Millikan Way,
Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005.
Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-
326-5066. Web: bonamici.house.
gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D):
313 Hart Senate Offi ce Building,
Washington, D.C. 20510. Phone:
202-224-3753. Web: www.merkley.
senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Offi ce Build-
ing, Washington, D.C., 20510.
Phone: 202-224-5244. Web: www.
wyden.senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court Street
N.E., H-373, Salem, OR 97301.
Phone: 503-986-1431. Web: www.
leg.state.or.us/witt/
Email: rep.
bradwitt@state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone
(D): 900 Court St. N.E., H-481,
Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-
1432. Email: rep.deborah boone@
state.or.us District offi ce: P.O. Box
928, Cannon Beach, OR 97110.
Phone: 503-986-1432. Web: www.
leg.state.or.us/ boone/