OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2016
Ready or not, here comes the future
o one I know is looking forward to
four months of presidential cam-
paigns. As if we haven’t had enough.
N
Even though I thought I’d had read
enough about Donald Trump, I succumbed
to an opinion piece in The Washington Post
last week.
Morbid curiosity drew me to the head-
line: “I hate Donald Trump. But he might get
my vote.” The author was Jim Ruth, a retired
fi nancial adviser.
The opening of Mr. Ruth’s piece was a
meditation on disturbing changes in Ameri-
can culture — on cam-
puses and in the media.
The essence of
Ruth’s rationale was:
“Short of not voting
at all — still an option
some of us are consid-
ering — (Trump) is the
only one who appears
to want to preserve the
American way of life as
we know it.”
Steve
That line hit a chord
Forrester
with me. I’ve heard this
a lot. But the diffi culty
of wanting things not to change — or want-
ing thing to be how they once were — is that
none of us get to have that. History is sprint-
ing onward, like it or not.
T
he evangelical writer Michael Gerson has
offered this refl ection on America and the
business of wanting a return to the past. “His-
torically speaking, nations defi ned by eth-
nicity, motivated by grievances and looking
backward to a golden age are commonplace.”
Gerson adds that, “What has been different
about the United States is its remarkable abil-
ity to make a nation out of nations.”
Political stability, it seems to me, is what
people prize in the United States. We know
that when we wake up in the morning the
electricity will come on, the roads will be
clear and there won’t be a violent overthrow
of our various governments. If you have
come to America from a less stable country,
that value is even higher.
Tom McCall
had the capacity
to lead Oregon
through a very
tumultuous
period.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
Author Alvin Toffler, gestures during his talk on the Fourth Wave at the Astrobiology
Roadmap Workshop in Mountain View, Calif., in 1998.
Of course, there are some Americans who
nurture political and even violent turmoil
(think Malheur National Wildlife Refuge).
But the majority of Americans aren’t keen on
having armed revolutionaries in our midst.
erson’s observation about the resilience
of American political culture is reassur-
ing. If you travel around America just a bit,
you gain a sense of just how starkly different
our regions are.
The current issue of Texas Monthly contains
an extensive article about Larry McMurtry,
the writer whose novels have defi ned Texas.
Wrote Skip Hollandsworth: “McMurtry has
by turns elevated and eviscerated (Texas) with
the kind of marrow-piercing observations only
ever allowed native sons.”
G
Hollandsworth describes McMurtry’s
response to the intense quiet of the prairie and
of how that solitude can generate great real-
life characters. Once I saw the late Oregon
Gov. Tom McCall’s boyhood home in Terre-
bonne , I sensed the remoteness of that place
generated McCall’s outsized character.
McCall had the capacity to lead Oregon
through a very tumultuous period (the 1970s)
and move our state into the future.
uring the third year of McCall’s adminis-
tration, Alvin Toffl er brought out a sem-
inal work called Future Shock. Noting the
book’s 40th anniversary in The New York
Times, Farhad Manjoo describes the rele-
vance of Toffl er’s warnings. “In Mr. Toffl er’s
coinage, future shock wasn’t simply a meta-
D
phor for our diffi culties in dealing with new
things. It was a real psychological malady,
the ‘dizzying disorientation brought on by the
premature arrival of the future.’ And ‘unless
intelligent steps are taken to combat it,’ he
warned, ‘millions of human beings will fi nd
themselves increasingly disoriented, progres-
sively incompetent to deal rationally with
their environments.’”
Manjoo adds: “In rereading Mr. Toffl er’s
book, as I did last week, it seems clear that
his diagnosis has largely panned out, with
local and global crises arising daily from our
collective inability to deal with ever-faster
change.”
n spite of candidates’ promises, we can’t
have the past back. We only get the future.
The question is whether we’ll get leaders —
in the White House and Congress — who will
help us prepare for that future.
— S.A.F.
I
Gov. Tom McCall looks at the
Surfsand Motel in Cannon Beach
that ignited the discussion of
Oregon’s beach laws in 1967.
Submitted Photo
FBI Director Comey: A theory about why he did it
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON — Why did
he do it?
FBI Director James Comey spent
14 minutes laying out an unassailable
case for prosecuting Hillary Clinton
for the mishandling of classifi ed
material.
Then at literally the last minute, he
recommended against prosecution.
This is baffl ing. Under the statute
(18 U.S.C. section 793(f)), it’s a fel-
ony to mishandle classifi ed information
either intentionally or “through gross
negligence.” The evidence, as outlined
by Comey, is overwhelming.
Clinton either sent or received 110
emails in 52 chains containing mate-
rial that was classifi ed at the time. Eight
of these chains contained information
that was top secret. A few of the clas-
sifi ed emails were so marked, contrary
to Clinton’s assertion that there were
none.
These were stored on a home server
that was even less secure than a normal
Gmail account. Her communications
were quite possibly com-
injure the nation. But Clin-
promised by hostile powers,
ton clearly intended to
thus jeopardizing American
set up an unsecured pri-
national security.
vate server. She clearly
“An unclassifi ed sys-
intended to send those clas-
tem was no place for that
sifi ed emails. She clearly
conversation,” said Comey
received warnings from her
of the classifi ed emails. A
own department about the
rather kind euphemism,
dangers of using a private
using the passive voice. In
email account.
plainer, more direct lan-
She meant to do what
Charles
guage: It is imprudent,
she did. And she did it.
Krauthammer
improper and indeed
Intentionally.
illegal to be conduct-
That’s
two
She meant grounds for prosecu-
ing such business on
an unsecured priSvate
one requiring no
to do what tion,
server.
intent whatsoever. Yet
Comey summed she did. And Comey claims that no
up Clinton’s behav-
reasonable prosecu-
ior as “extremely care-
she did it. tor would bring such a
less.” How is that not
case. Nor has one ever
Intentionally. been brought.
gross negligence?
Yet Comey let
Not so. Just last
her off the hook, citing lack of intent. year, the Justice Department success-
But negligence doesn’t require intent. fully prosecuted naval reservist Bryan
Compromising national secrets is such Nishimura, who improperly down-
a grave offense that it requires either loaded classifi ed material to his per-
intent or negligence.
sonal, unclassifi ed electronic devices.
Lack of intent is, therefore, no
The government admitted that
defense. But one can question that there was no evidence that Nishimura
claim as well. Yes, it is safe to assume intended to distribute the material to
that there was no malicious intent to others. Nonetheless, he was sentenced
to two years of probation, fi ned and for-
ever prohibited from seeking a security
clearance, which effectively kills any
chance of working in national security.
So why not Hillary Clinton? The
usual answer is that the Clintons are
treated by a different standard. Only lit-
tle people pay. They are too well con-
nected, too well protected to be treated
like everybody else.
Alternatively, the explanation lies
with Comey: He gave in to implicit
political pressure, the desire to please
those in power.
Certainly plausible, but given Com-
ey’s reputation for probity and given
that he holds a 10-year appointment, I’d
suggest a third line of reasoning.
When Chief Justice John Roberts
used a tortured, logic-defying argu-
ment to uphold Obamacare, he was
subjected to similar accusations of bad
faith. My view was that, as guardian of
the Supreme Court’s public standing,
he thought the issue too momentous
— and the implications for the coun-
try too large — to hinge on a decision
of the court. Especially after Bush v.
Gore, Roberts wanted to keep the court
from overturning the political branches
on so monumental a piece of social
legislation.
I would suggest that Comey’s think-
ing, whether conscious or not, was sim-
ilar: He did not want the FBI director to
end up as the arbiter of the 2016 pres-
idential election. If Clinton were not
a presumptive presidential nominee
but simply a retired secretary of state,
he might well have made a different
recommendation.
Prosecuting under current circum-
stances would have upended and redi-
rected an already year long presidential
selection process. In my view, Comey
didn’t want to be remembered as the
man who irreversibly altered the course
of American political history.
And with no guarantee that the
prosecution would succeed, moreover.
Imagine that scenario: You knock out
of the race the most likely next presi-
dent — and she ultimately gets acquit-
ted! Imagine how Comey goes down in
history under those circumstances.
I admit I’m giving Comey the ben-
efi t of the doubt. But the best way I can
reconcile his reputation for integrity
with the grating illogic of his Clinton
decision is by presuming that he didn’t
want to make history.
I don’t endorse his decision. (Nor
did I Roberts’.) But I think I understand
it.
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