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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 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 States need to comply with ID act The authentic power tate legislatures in Oregon and Washington state are in a stare down with the federal government, one they are likely to lose. At issue is the adoption of federal standards for driver’s licenses and state-issued identiication cards in Oregon and Washington that can be used at secured areas, including airports. The law requiring it, the Real ID Act of 2005, was enacted as a result of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war on terrorism. It requires higher standards of proof of U.S. citizenship or proof of lawful status in the U.S. in order for state-issued IDs to be valid for federal purposes, such as at airport security points or when entering federal courthouses or other secure federal facilities. S The deadlines The Transportation Security Administration, which oversees airport security, has said it intends to stop accepting noncompli- ant IDs on Jan. 22, 2018. States that are still noncompliant — but have been granted deadline extensions — will face a hard deadline of October 2020, when Homeland Security has said it will require all air travelers to carry a Real ID-compliant license. At that point, residents from noncomplaint states will be required to present other identiication which does meet Real ID requirements, like a passport, to ly domestically or to enter federal courthouses or other secure federal facility. Passports are already required for international air travel. The opposition Across the country, 21 states currently comply, but others including Oregon and Washington have fought the law, saying it is an overreaching, unfunded federal Technology mandate. In 2009, Oregon lawmak- ers prohibited the Department of Motor and Vehicles from spending state funds to expense comply with the act. They have argued that many of the requirements were too issues that expensive to undertake, and they have existed asked for extensions each year, which in 2005 have been routinely granted. Just this along with month, Oregon was granted another extension, but this time only until June security concerns 2017, essentially just enough time for the Legislature to reconsider its posi- about the tion. Oregon lawmakers have said they cards’ data will continue to seek extensions, which shouldn’t if granted, would make its deadline for be a factor full compliance in 2020. In Washington, the state does have today. an option for drivers to purchase an enhanced ID at the DMV, but it is currently only suficient for land and sea travel and does not meet the federal standards. Washington has also asked for extensions, but its most recent request for more time was rejected, and residents there now face the 2018 deadline. Time to act While we understand the two states’ initial reluctance to com- ply, it’s time to start implementing the changes. Congress enacted the law more than a decade ago and aviation safety remains a deep concern. The Real IDs will help ease some of the worries. The security measures also make the licenses and ID cards harder to replicate and they have the potential to reduce fraud and identity theft. Additionally, technology and expense issues that existed in 2005 along with security concerns about the cards’ data shouldn’t be a factor today. Experts say better technology and security now exists at far less cost than it did then. And on some of the con- cerns, like data security, the states should already be addressing those issues regardless of the Real ID requirements. Failure in the two states to take the needed implementation steps will eventually force all residents in both states who want to board a plane or enter a federal courthouse to spend the time and money themselves to obtain a compliant ID when one could easily exist otherwise through state-issued driver’s licenses. Legislators in each state shouldn’t allow that to happen and should address it in their next sessions. of Michelle Obama By FRANK BRUNI New York Times News Service I sn’t it delicious that after traficking in racism, promoting sexism and using a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace as a pivot into political relevance, Donald Trump could receive his inal death blow from a black woman: the presi- dent’s wife? And isn’t it interesting that after so many years of keeping a studied distance from the ugliness of the political arena, the irst lady is throwing herself with such passion into this grotesque campaign? That says everything about the singular threat that Trump poses, and she’s emerging as the iercest counter to it: Michelle Obama, octopus slayer. She’s effective because she has never gone looking for a ight — we know that about her. She acts when she has some- thing to defend, and as she made clear in a stirring, searing speech late last week, that’s more than her husband’s legacy, which a Trump victory would decimate. It’s her dignity as a woman. It’s the dignity of all women. I don’t mean to overstate her impact: Trump was going down before she joined the chorus of condemnation. But her eloquence is sealing the deal. First at the Democratic convention in late July and then in New Hampshire on Thursday, she embodied the nation’s conscience and staked her claim as the most earnest guardian of our most important values. Hillary Clinton can’t play that part. She has made too many messy compromises and revealed too much rococo calculation. Those hacked John Podesta emails suggest that she doesn’t blink until a sprawling committee of Clinton whisperers has hashed out the wisdom of it. Barack Obama can’t play that part, not at this exact moment, in his precise mood. On the stump in Ohio last week, he essentially asked voters not just to reject Trump but to punish the GOP, and his obvious, warranted glee over the party’s travails had a score-set- tling, told-you-so quality to it. He excoriated Republicans for the “swamp of crazy that has been fed over and over and over and over again.” He told them that Trump is the nominee you get when your agenda is “based on lies, based on hoaxes.” He wasn’t merely safeguarding America’s future. He was reveling in his revenge. Not a politician Michelle Obama probably also wants revenge for the worst of what her husband (and she) went through, but you don’t hear that in her words. That’s largely because she has the luxury of not being a politician. She isn’t and won’t be running for anything. She hasn’t been forced to weigh in on a bevy of issues, poten- tially alienating voters who dis- agree, or to exhaust her ammunition on a range of fronts. You want high approval ratings? Exit elected ofice, or never enter it in the irst place. But in addition to that, she has honed a talent — rare in Washington — for rising above pettiness, and she and her speechwriters have aced a nuanced, soulful alternative to common reproach and garden-va- riety rancor. I think of the gorgeous passage in her convention speech about moving to Washington and watching her daughters wake up every morning in a white house built by black slaves. That observa- tion admonished America for its sins but also brimmed with appreciation, complimenting and congratulating the country on its progress. It got at something that politics and politi- cians seldom do: the complicated, inarguable truth. Her speech last week was just as exceptional, because it was less a summons to the barricades than a cry from the heart, and she’d planned to make remarks along these lines even before she heard the recording of Trump’s 2005 conversation with Billy Bush. Then that recording came out, intensifying her determination. “It hurts,” she said, referring to the sort of entitlement that Trump expresses, the kind of language that he uses and his obvious belief that women exist chiely for his pleasure, which takes precedence over their auton- omy. “It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walk- ing down the street, minding your own business, and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body.” She added that women often “pretend like this doesn’t really bother us, maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak.” “Maybe we’re afraid to be that vulnerable,” she theorized, but she let her own vulnerability show, in a voice that trembled. It was her bridge to every American she had any hope of reaching. There has been incessant chatter during this election cycle about authenticity. There has been as much misunderstanding, especially among Trump’s boosters, about what it really means. Insults aren’t badges of authen- ticity. They’re evidence of rudeness and frequently cruel. Profanity doesn’t render you authentic. It just proves that you’re a child. You know what struck me as authentic? The way that the irst lady and George W. Bush leaned into each other and held hands at a funeral for police oficers in Dallas back in July. Or the way that they embraced last month in Washington at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. To look at those images is to understand Michelle Obama’s power. She isn’t tailoring her behavior to talking points. She isn’t iltering her emotions through any partisan agenda. She has arguably become the 2016 race’s moral authority, which is why Clinton, in the most recent debate, repeated her widely quoted assertion that “when they go low, we go high.” That’s hardly accurate about everyone in the Democratic Party, the Clinton campaign or the Obama administration, but it’s a fair enough description of how the irst lady comports herself. In contrast What a contrast to other politi- cal surrogates. What an antidote to all the crazy spinning. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, is playing some parlor game to see how far she can travel from reality, how creatively she can gin up distractions and how subtle an expression — by turns bemused and beatiic — she can wear. My favorite Conway-ism was that certain members of Congress shouldn’t upbraid Trump because they are guilty themselves of forcing French kisses on unwilling women. Translation: Let he who is without tongue cast the irst stone. Can you believe that she once marketed herself as a strategist who could help Republicans collapse the gender gap? Trump trails Clinton by 15 points among women, according to an analysis of October polls that Nate Silver did last week. At this point in 2012, Mitt Romney trailed Obama by 8. “It seems fair to say that, if Trump loses the election, it will be because women voted against him,” Silver wrote. How perfect. Misogyny will play midwife to history. After being treated by Trump as if they’re disposable, women will dispose of him — at the urging of the irst lady, in the service of the irst female president. They will let him know that no matter how much money he has or how big a star he is, there are places where his tenta- cles can’t travel. Not all the Tic Tacs in the world could sweeten that fate. LETTER TO THE EDITOR The trolley is key he Astoria Trolley is one of the main attractions that bring people to our town, and it pro- vides a wonderful lasting memory. Recently we have been told that much of the required improve- ments to some of the wooden por- tions of the Riverwalk will cost signiicant money over the next 10 years. At a City Council meeting I attended, it appeared the city was going to “ask” the trolley vol- unteers to help pay for these T improvements. The current $1 ride provides the money the volun- teers need to operate and maintain the trolley, and I do not believe it should be increased. Instead, we should stop paying the Astoria-Warrenton Area Cham- ber of Commerce over $300,000 each year to provide visitor ser- vices and general advertising of the area. The wonderful trolley volunteers do more to promote our city, and should not have to increase costs, which might dis- courage some families from enjoy- ing this wonderful experience. Instead of increasing the cost of the trolley ride, the City Council needs to increase the amount they currently are spending on River- walk improvements from the Pro- mote Astoria Fund (which collects a tax levied on hotels in town), as well as decrease the over $300,000 from that fund given to the Cham- ber of Commerce, and leave the trolley with its special volunteers alone. GEORGE (MICK) HAGUE Astoria
