OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
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
OUR VIEW
State’s bafling
embrace of Oracle
Oregon state oficials make target of
lawsuit a primary technology vendor
ow’s this for cruel irony? Oregon state oficials sue mul-
tinational computer giant Oracle for $6 billion for failed
technology, then agree as part of a settlement to use more of
the company’s products and services over the next six years.
You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
There is no way of knowing whether the Oregon could have
done better proceeding to trial. Legal studies have shown that most
plaintiffs who pass up a settlement offer and go to trial end up get-
ting less money. As one expert noted: “In the vast majority of cases,
the defendant’s offer is perceived to be half a loaf when in fact it is
an entire loaf or more.”
This leaves taxpayers and editorialists to focus on the terms
themselves. Here’s what we know:
• The settlement is valued at $100 million — less than 2% of
what the state sought when it iled suit against Oracle in 2014. The
state accused Oracle of fraud and other misdeeds when it billed
Oregon $240 million for a Cover Oregon health insurance exchange
website that never worked.
• Only $25 million of the settlement value will come in the form
of cash — and that money will likely be used to help offset attorney
fees and other legal costs. Oregon already has spent $16 million on
Markowitz Herbold and three other irms hired to pursue Oracle for
damages.
• Oracle will provide a $10 million grant to fund science and
math education in Oregon’s public schools.
• The remaining $65 million is the value put on a six-year licens-
ing agreement with Oracle to use its technology to upgrade the
state’s outdated computer systems.
Gov. Kate Brown was asked about entrusting Oracle with more
of the state’s technology systems after the stunning failure of Cover
Oregon. She said while Oregon had “a bad experience” with the health
exchange project, the settlement provides the state with “an incredible
opportunity” to take advantage of Oracle’s business software.
Count us as skeptical. State government has an awful record
when it comes to information technology projects. Millions of dol-
lars have been wasted on computer projects that loundered. State
databases containing conidential information have been hacked.
And a recent audit found that weaknesses remain across all state
technology projects. Making Oracle a primary technology provider
for the next six years by virtue of a lawsuit settlement seems terribly
short-sighted and a noncompetitive method of selecting vendors in a
rapidly changing industry.
The Cover Oregon debacle has been examined in depth by our
state’s newspapers and was the target of state and congressional
investigations. The project was undermined by questionable con-
tracting practices, lack of proper oversight and political meddling
by former Gov. John Kitzhaber and his administration. For its part,
Oracle fell behind schedule and was unable to demonstrate that its
website worked. In the end, Oregon spent more than $240 million
on Cover Oregon and failed to sign up a single person for health-
care coverage through its website.
State House Minority Leader Mike McLane said the settlement
“marks the end of one of the most embarrassing chapters in Oregon
history.” It also means that, legally, no one is liable for wasting all
this money. Without a trial, state oficials won’t be compelled to tes-
tify under oath about what went so terrible wrong and why.
And that is the price Oregonians ultimately pay.
H
When a crackpot
seeks presidency
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
New York Times News Service
O
ne of the mental traps that
we all fall into, journalists
included, is to perceive poli-
tics through narratives.
President Gerald Ford had been a
star football player, yet somehow we
in the media devel-
oped a narrative of
him as a klutz — so
that every time he
stumbled, a clip
was on the evening
news. Likewise,
we in the media
wrongly portrayed President Jimmy
Carter as a bumbling lightweight,
even as he tackled the toughest
challenges, from recognizing China
to returning the Panama Canal.
Then in 2000, we painted Al Gore
as inauthentic and having a penchant
for self-aggrandizing exaggerations,
and the most memorable element
of the presidential debates that year
became not George W. Bush’s mis-
statements but Gore’s dramatic sighs.
I bring up this checkered track
record because I wonder if once
again our collective reporting isn’t
fueling misperceptions.
A CNN/ORC poll this month
found that by a margin of 15 percent-
age points, voters thought Donald
Trump was “more honest and trust-
worthy” than Hillary Clinton. Let’s
be frank: This public perception is
completely at odds with all evidence.
On the PolitiFact website, 13
percent of Clinton’s statements that
were checked were rated “false”
or “pants on ire,” compared with
53 percent of Trump’s. Conversely,
half of Clinton’s are rated “true”
or “mostly true” compared to 15
percent of Trump statements.
Clearly, Clinton shades the truth
— yet there’s no comparison with
Trump.
I’m not sure that journalism bears
responsibility, but this does raise the
thorny issue of false equivalence,
which has been hotly debated among
journalists this campaign. Here’s the
question: Is it journalistic malpractice
to quote each side and leave it to read-
ers to reach their own conclusions,
even if one side seems to fabricate
facts or make ludicrous comments?
President Barack Obama weighed
in this week, saying that “we can’t
afford to act as if there’s some equiv-
alence here.”
I’m wary of grand conclusions
about false equivalence from 30,000
feet. But at the grass roots of a
campaign, I think we can do better at
signaling that one side is a clown.
Clearly, Clinton
shades the
truth — yet
there’s no
comparison
with Trump.
There are crackpots who believe
that the earth is lat, and they don’t
deserve to be quoted without explain-
ing that this is an, er, outlying view,
and the same goes for a crackpot who
has argued that climate change is a
Chinese-made hoax, who has called
for barring Muslims and who has said
that he will build a border wall and
that Mexico will pay for it.
We owe it to our readers to signal
when we’re writing about a crackpot.
Even if he’s a presidential candidate.
No — especially when he’s a
presidential candidate.
There frankly has been a degree
of unreality to some of the cam-
paign discussion: Partly because
Hillary Clinton’s narrative is one
of a slippery, dishonest candidate,
the discussion disproportionately
revolves around that theme. Yes,
Clinton has been disingenuous
and legalistic in her explanations
of emails. Meanwhile, Trump is a
mythomaniac who appears to have
systematically cheated customers of
Trump University.
Clinton’s inances are a mineield,
which we know because she has
released 39 years of tax returns;
Trump would be the irst major party
nominee since Ford not to release his
tax return (even Ford released a tax
summary). And every serious analyst
knows that Trump is telling a whop-
per when he gleefully promises to
build a $25 billion wall that Mexico
will pay for.
Then there’s the question of
foundations. Yes, Clinton created
conlicts of interest with the family
foundation and didn’t fully disclose
donors as promised. But the Trump
Foundation lat out broke the law
by making a political contribution
(which may have been a bribe to
avoid an investigation, but that’s
another story).
It’s also worth avoiding moral
equivalence about the work of
the two foundations: The Clinton
Foundation saves lives around the
world from AIDS and malnutrition,
while the Trump Foundation used
its resources to buy — yes! — a
large painting of Trump, as a gift for
Trump (that may violate IRS rules
as well).
The latest dust-up has been health
care. Neither candidate has been
very open about health, but Clinton
has produced much more detailed
medical records than Trump, and an
actuarial irm told The Washington
Post Fact Checker that Clinton has
a 5.9 percent chance of dying by the
end of a second term in ofice, while
Trump would have a 8.4 percent
chance.
So I wonder if journalistic efforts
at fairness don’t risk normalizing
Trump, without fully acknowledging
what an abnormal candidate he is.
Historically we in the news media
have sometimes fallen into the traps
of glib narratives or false equiva-
lencies, and we should try hard to
ensure that doesn’t happen again.
We should be guard dogs, not
lap dogs, and when the public sees
Trump as more honest than Clinton,
something has gone wrong.
For my part, I’ve never met a
national politician as ill informed, as
deceptive, as evasive and as vacuous
as Trump. He’s not normal. And
somehow that is what our barks need
to convey.
The uses of patriotism amid a crisis of solidarity
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
T
his column is directed at all the
high school football players
around the country who are
pulling a Kaepernick — kneeling
during their pregame national anthems
to protest systemic racism. I’m going
to try to convince you that what you’re
doing is extremely
counterproductive.
When Europeans
irst settled this
continent they had
two big thoughts.
The irst was that
God had called them to create a good
and just society on this continent. The
second was that they were screwing
it up.
The early settlers put intense moral
pressure on themselves. They illed
the air with angry jeremiads about
how badly things were going and how
much they needed to change.
This harsh self-criticism was
the mainstream voice that deined
American civilization. As the historian
Perry Miller wrote, “Under the guise
of this mounting wail of sinfulness,
this incessant and never successful cry
for repentance, the Puritans launched
themselves upon the process of
Americanization.”
By 1776, this fusion of radical
hope and radical self-criticism had
become the country’s civic religion.
This civic religion was based on a
moral premise — that all men are
created equal — and pointed toward
a vision of a promised land — a place
where your family or country of
origin would have no bearing on your
opportunities.
Over the centuries this civic reli-
gion ired a fervent desire for change.
Every signiicant American reform
movement was shaped by it. Abraham
Lincoln wrote, “If ever I feel the soul
within me elevate and expand to those
dimensions not entirely unworthy of
its almighty Architect, it is when I con-
template the cause of my country.”
Martin Luther King Jr. sang the
national anthem before his “I Have a
Dream” speech and then quoted the
Declaration of Independence within it.
This American creed gave people
a sense of purpose and a high ideal to
live up to. It bonded them together.
Whatever their other identities — Irish-
American, Jewish American, African-
American — they were still part of the
same story.
Over the years, America’s civic reli-
gion was nurtured the way all religions
are nurtured: by sharing moments of
reverence. Americans performed the
same rituals on Thanksgiving and July
4; they sang the national anthem and
said the Pledge in unison; they listened
to the same speeches on national
occasions and argued out the great
controversies of our history.
All of this evangelizing had a big
effect. As late as 2003, Americans
were the most patriotic people on
earth, according to the University of
Chicago’s National Opinion Research
Center.
Recently, the civic religion has been
under assault. Many schools no longer
teach American history, so students
never learn the facts and tenets of their
creed. A globalist mentality teaches
students they are citizens of the world
rather than citizens of America.
Critics like Ta-Nehisi Coates have
arisen, arguing that the American real-
ity is so far from the American creed as
to negate the value of the whole thing.
The multiculturalist mindset values
racial, gender and ethnic identities and
regards national identities as reaction-
ary and exclusive.
There’s been a sharp decline in
American patriotism. Today, only 52
percent of Americans are “extremely
proud” of their country, a historical
low. Among those 18 to 29, only
34 percent are extremely proud.
Americans know less about their
history and creed and are less likely to
be fervent believers in it.
Sitting out the anthem takes place
in the context of looming post-na-
tionalism. When we sing the national
anthem, we’re not commenting on the
state of America. We’re fortifying our
foundational creed. We’re expressing
gratitude for our ancestors and what
they left us. We’re expressing commit-
ment to the nation’s ideals, which we
have not yet fulilled.
If we don’t transmit that creed
through shared displays of reverence
we will have lost the idea system that
has always motivated reform. We will
lose the sense that we’re all in this
together. We’ll lose the sense of shared
loyalty to ideas bigger and more tran-
scendent than our own short lives.
If these common rituals are
insulted, other people won’t be moti-
vated to right your injustices because
they’ll be less likely to feel that you are
part of their story. People will become
strangers to one another and will inter-
act in cold instrumentalist terms.
You will strengthen Donald
Trump’s ethnic nationalism, which
erects barriers between Americans
and which is the dark opposite of
America’s traditional universal
nationalism.
I hear you when you say you are
unhappy with the way things are going
in America. But the answer to what’s
wrong in America is America — the
aspirations passed down generation
after generation and sung in unison
week by week.
We have a crisis of solidarity. That
makes it hard to solve every other
problem we have. When you stand
and sing the national anthem, you are
building a little solidarity, and you’re
singing a radical song about a radical
place.