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