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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2016 And so … goodbye But not farewell I f I could time travel, I would like to see the Astoria harbor captured in Cleveland Rockwell’s painting, “Early Morning, View of Tongue Point from Astoria” (1883). This radiant oil illustration, on display in the Columbia River Maritime Museum, captures the era of cargo ships under sail. I would like to have known Astoria when its downtown resided on wooden pilings — that free-for-all, sin city with the Finnish-lan- guage newspapers, a large Chinese quar- ter and the diminutive, powerful mogul Capt. George Flavel walking Steve by. Forrester Sixteen years fol- lowing Capt. Flavel’s death, my grandfather and partners pur- chased the Astoria Evening Budget. In 1929 they would purchase The Daily Astorian and merge the two. Succession is everything for a family-owned business. would not recognize what we do to bring this 144-year-old newspaper to a digital audience. He would, however, recognize the human com- edy of Astoria and Clatsop County that inds a home in our pages. The Daily Astorian/File Photo In December 1987, Steve Forrester succeeded his father, J.W. Forrester, as editor of The Daily Astorian. I am part of a succession that began when my grandfather, E.B. Aldrich, and partners started doing business here in 1919. To be in the third generation of a family-owned business — especially a newspaper — is to be conscious of one’s moment on life’s stage. “We come on to the stage in the middle of a play,” said the Rev. Alan Jones of San Fran- cisco. “We need to discern where we are in the drama in progress and learn the part assigned to us.” There are many ways of describing my experience. One is our newsroom, which for decades has been something of a graduate school in journalism and life. Over 28 years, upward of 90 reporters and photographers have worked in our building. Joan Herman was one of the irst reporters who took me out on her beat, which was City Hall. How wonderful that Joan has recently returned to Astoria. I will not begin to name the other remark- able talents that inhabited the desks of our newsroom over almost three decades. The list is long, and I would be negligent in omitting a name or two. The parade of photographers — Kent Kerr, Robin Loznak, Andy Dolan, Masako Watanabe, Laurie Assa, Alex Pajunas, Joshua Bessex and Danny Miller — has pro- duced a remarkable body of work. They were preceded by another artist, Bill Wagner, who worked for my brother and father. Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian David Pero, left, new publisher and editor, and retiring Publisher Steve Forrester, share a laugh with Donna Quinn of Cannery Pier Hotel, and Warrenton City Commissioner Henry Balensifer on Wednesday at a community open house for the newspaper at The Daily Astorian office. I n the Vietnam War memoir Dispatches, Michael Herr writes of “… remote, closed societies, mute and intractable.” That would overstate the Astoria of 1987. But as I got to know that community, people told me about the group of Astorians who opposed all change. I never found them. Instead, it seemed to me that inertia had frozen the town. The town has changed dramatically, due in no small part to the inlux of new blood with new ideas. Some of these were adults who had grown up here, gotten experience elsewhere and returned. M y Astoria career has coincided with dra- matic shifts in the technology behind our product. Laura Sellers described the last 20 years quite well in her Notebook of last Friday. My father died only 16 years ago. But he S uccession is everything in business and non- proit organizations. The succession from me to David Pero, which occurs today, began over one year ago, with planning by our board of directors. We advertised, interviewed candidates, analyzed and interviewed again. David will be the second of two nonfamily editor-publishers of this newspaper since our family entered the scene in 1919. My father’s partner Merle Chessman enjoyed an especially long tenure (1919-1947). His son Bob was pub- lisher until 1960, when we hired an outsider, Morgan Coe, who had been active in Alaska publishing. Running a newspaper these days involves having one’s foot in at least two eras. While working at the Hearst Corp., David Pero drafted the irst white paper for entering the digital world for Hearst newspapers. He brings a broad range of news and publishing talent to Astoria. For the past four weeks, I have introduced David to a broad range of business people, civic leaders and professionals in Clatsop County, while Matt Winters did the same in Paciic County, Washington. A s I walk out the door today, I anticipate a new era that our readers will ind exciting. My main role now becomes president and CEO of EO Media Group, our family’s com- pany that operates 11 newspapers in Oregon and Washington. From time to time, I will be asked to be this newspaper’s institutional memory. My words occasionally will make their way to this page. And in my corporate role, planning for suc- cession will continue to be my primary task. — S.A.F. Donald Trump and the itness threshold Not at all. He’s “a big fan of what I’m saying, big fan,” attests Trump. You’re a fan of his, he’s a fan of yours. And vice versa. Treat him ASHINGTON — Donald “unfairly” and you will pay. House Trump, the man who deied speaker, Gold Star mother, it matters not. every political rule and prevailed Of course we all try to pro- to win his party’s nomination, last tect our own dignity and command week took on perhaps the most respect. But Trump’s hypersensitiv- and unedited, untempered Pav- sacred political rule of all: Never ity lovian responses are, shall we say, attack a Gold Star family. unusual in both ferocity Not just because it and predictability. This is beyond narcis- alienates a vital constitu- sism. I used to think Trump ency but because it reveals was an 11-year-old, an a shocking absence of ele- undeveloped schoolyard mentary decency and of bully. I was off by about 10 natural empathy for the years. His needs are more most profound of human primitive, an infantile hun- ger for approval and praise, sorrows — parental grief. a craving that can never Why did Trump do it? It be satisied. He lives in a Charles wasn’t a mistake. It was a cocoon of solipsism where Krauthammer revelation. It’s that he can’t the world outside himself help himself. His govern- has value — indeed exists ing rule in life is to strike back when — only insofar as it sustains and attacked, disrespected or even slighted. inlates him. To understand Trump, you have to Most politicians seek approval. grasp the General Theory: He judges But Trump lives for the adoration. He every action, every pronouncement, doesn’t even try to hide it, boasting every person by a single criterion — incessantly about his crowds, his stand- whether or not it/he is “nice” to Trump. ing ovations, his TV ratings, his poll Vladimir Putin called him brilliant numbers, his primary victories. The lat- (in fact, he didn’t, but that’s another ter are most prized because they offer matter) and a bromance is born. A empirical evidence of how loved and “Mexican” judge rules against Trump, admired he is. which makes him a bad person gov- Prized also because, in our politics, erned by prejudiced racial instincts. success is self-validating. A candidacy House Speaker Paul Ryan criti- that started out as a joke, as a self-ag- cizes Trump’s attack on the Gold Star grandizing exercise in xenophobia, mother — so Trump mocks Ryan and struck a chord in a certain constituency praises his primary opponent. On what and took off. The joke was on those grounds? That the opponent is an expe- who believed that he was not a serious rienced legislator? Is a tested leader? man and therefore would not be taken By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Washington Post Writers Group W seriously. They — myself emphatically included — were wrong. Winning — in ratings, polls and primaries — validated him. Which brought further validation in the form of endorsements from respected and popular Republicans. Chris Christie was irst to cross the Rubicon. Ben Car- son then offered his blessings, such as they are. Newt Gingrich came aboard to provide intellectual ballast. Although tepid, the endorsements by Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were further mile- stones in the normalization of Trump. But this may all now be jeopardized by the Gold Star gaffe. (Remember: A gaffe in Washington is when a pol- itician inadvertently reveals the truth, especially about himself.) It has put a severe strain on the patched-over rela- tionship between the candidate and both Republican leadership and Repub- lican regulars. Trump’s greatest success — nor- malizing the abnormal — is begin- ning to dissipate. When a Pulit- zer Prize-winning liberal columnist (Eugene Robinson) and a major con- servative foreign policy thinker and former speechwriter for George Shultz under Ronald Reagan (Robert Kagan) simultaneously question Trump’s psy- chological stability, indeed sanity, there’s something going on (as Trump would say). The dynamic of this election is obvi- ous. As in 1980, the status quo can- didate for a failed administration is running against an outsider. The stay- the-course candidate plays his/her only available card — charging that the out- sider is dangerously out of the main- stream and temperamentally unit to command the nation. In 1980, Reagan had to do just one thing: pass the threshold test for accept- ability. He won that election because he did, especially in the debate with Jimmy Carter in which Reagan showed himself to be genial, self-assured and, above all, nonthreatening. You may not like all his policies, but you could safely entrust the nation to him. Trump badly needs to pass that threshold. If character is destiny, he won’t. 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 Founded in 1873