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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 2, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 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 OUR VIEW E ach week we recognize those people and organizations in the community deserving of public praise for the good things they do to make the North Coast a better place to live, and also those who should be called out for their actions. SHOUTOUTS This week’s Shoutouts go to: • The organizers of fun-filled, ongoing holiday events and activities across the North Coast. Astoria, Warrenton, Seaside and Cannon Beach each have a “sleigh-full” of free-to-low-cost holiday events throughout the month that include “shop local” promotions; caroling and concerts; craft classes; performances of “A Christmas Carol” at the Liberty Theater, “Scrooged in Astoria” at the Astor Street Opry Co., “The Nutcracker” ballet at Astoria High School and “It’s a Wonderful Life” at the Coaster Theatre; the annual Providence Seaside Hospital Festival of Trees; holiday teas; and pictures and visits with Santa. • The Warrenton Fred Meyer store and store director Jerry Sandness, who sponsored a “How To Cook A Turkey” Thanksgiving contest in The Daily Astorian for schoolchildren who entered the contest by writing essays on the subject. The store awarded the winning entry a Thanksgiving dinner for six, but also went the extra mile by creating a stocked gift basket for another family of a third grader who lost their home in a fire. The third-grader was hopeful to win because her family is living in a trailer with little money and she wanted her parents and sis- ters to have a free turkey dinner. Sandness made the wish come true. • Members of Seaside Elks Lodge and the Long Beach, Washington, Elks Lodge who provided for people in need during the Thanksgiving holiday. In Seaside, the Elks delivered 102 boxes of food to needy families. The program, known as Holiday Helpers, is in its third year of providing food and house- hold needs to families at Thanksgiving time. Boxes included tur- keys, fresh produce, canned and boxed food, toothpaste and toi- let paper among other items. In Long Beach, the Elks hosted a Thanksgiving dinner and served more than 500 meals to people in need. • Members of the Seaside Dispatch Center, who received a critical incident award from their peers during the recent APCO/NENA annual conference. The organization is devoted to the advancement of public safety communications, and the award recognized the Seaside dispatchers for their professional- ism and dedication to duty in the aftermath of when Sgt. Jason Goodding was shot and killed in the line of duty in February. This past month the Oregon Peace Officers Association recog- nized Officer David Davidson with a medal of honor for his quick action in returning fire that night and killing the man who took Goodding’s life. CALLOUTS This week’s Callouts go to: • The Oregon Department of Transportation, which spent nearly $1 million on a management audit that may not address one of the reasons the review was ordered in the first place. Gov. Kate Brown had ordered the audit at the request of legislators who want to ensure ODOT is operating effectively before they consider costly transportation funding requests in their next ses- sion. Among their concerns were instances when ODOT hired or kept contractors who appeared to have conflicts of interest. While the audit included a question on how conflicts are identi- fied, it did not ask for an assessment of how much weight ODOT officials give conflicts in the process of recommending contrac- tors to the Oregon Transportation Commission, which officially hires the contractors. As a result, the audit may not give legisla- tors all the answers they sought from the agency. Suggestions? Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look. LETTERS WELCOME Letters should be exclusive to The Daily Astorian. Letters should be fewer than 350 words and must include the writer’s name, address and phone numbers. You will be contacted to confirm authorship. All letters are subject to edit- ing for space, grammar and, on occasion, factual accuracy. Only two letters per writer are printed each month. Letters written in response to other letter writers should address the issue at hand and, rather than mentioning the writer by name, should refer to the headline and date the letter was published. Discourse should be civil and people should be referred to in a respectful manner. Submissions may be sent in any of these ways: E-mail to editor@dailyasto- rian.com; online at www.dailyas- torian.com; delivered to the Asto- rian offices at 949 Exchange St. and 1555 N. Roosevelt in Seaside or by mail to Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103. A case for Mitt Romney By FRANK BRUNI New York Times News Service A show of hands, please: How many of you would like Donald Trump to step away — far away — from his Twitter account? I’m pretty sure I have a majority, but to be safe: How many can at least agree on no tweets before breakfast? Yowza. I’m above 95 percent. Reince, you don’t have to nod wildly and jump up and down; the raised hand alone will do. And you get one hand, Melania, not two. Two is a real, provable case of voter fraud. Thanks in part to the pres- ident-elect’s predilection for outbursts of fewer than 140 characters, he routinely comes across as petty and mercurial. But right now he has an opportunity for the opposite impression. He can choose Mitt Romney as his secretary of state. That he’s actually mulling this is alone extraordinary. Trump knows how to carry a grudge the way Jim Brown knew how to carry a football, and Romney gave him cause for vengefulness, with a major speech during the Republican primaries that labeled him a fraud and exhorted Americans to reject him. Had some knowledgeable inti- mate of Trump’s told me on Nov. 9 that an unexpected fate awaited Romney, the State Department would have been my millionth guess. The stockade would have been my first. If Trump taps Romney, he’ll be sending a powerful message to an anxious world that he’s not hostage to the darkest parts of his character. He needs to project that as much as we need to see it. Granted, Romney’s résumé isn’t the most logical for the job. He has spent most of his life as a businessman, and his lone public office was governor of Massachusetts. But not all our secretaries of state were steeped in foreign affairs from an early point, like Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice. Many had backgrounds principally devoted to other concerns. That was true of James Baker, who held the post under the first President Bush, and of Hillary Clinton, though she traveled the world as first lady and served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Besides which, Romney isn’t competing against the entire universe of possibilities. He’s competing against Rudy Giuliani, who, over recent years, has done such a masterful impersonation of a raving lunatic that I doubt he could get seasonal retail work at the Container Store. David Petraeus is also in play, but his supposed brilliance matters less in this case than his conviction for mishandling classified infor- mation. Picking him would brand Trump an utter hypocrite, given how vehemently he threatened to jail Clinton for related trespasses. As for Sen. Bob Corker, he’s a real Washington insider, unlike Romney, and doesn’t have the use- ful political celebrity that Clinton and then John Kerry brought to the position. Romney does. Over his own two presidential campaigns, Romney became ever more fluent in international issues, and he even showed some prescience, identifying Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a grave menace before other politicians woke up to that. He was ridiculed for dwelling in the past. Turns out he was living in the future. That wariness and his advocacy of free trade put him at odds with Trump but also make him a pru- dent counterbalance, if Trump can find the modesty and confidence to size up the situation that way. (That’s a big if.) So do Romney’s seriousness and unflappability. He’d temper Trump’s tantrums. Giuliani would just goad Trump on. With Trump’s Cabinet and staff picks so far, he has repaid his staunchest supporters. With Romney, he would be taking a more inclusive, conciliatory approach that befits his lack of any mandate, tries to move the country past such a divisive campaign and reassures jittery allies. It would be an open-minded, big-hearted, self-aware move that challenges Americans to see him in a more nuanced light. It would help him govern, by signaling that he’s bigger than his grievances. Despite the howls of protest from some on the right, it would hardly be an undignified, unprec- edented surrender: There was bad blood aplenty between Clinton and President Barack Obama before he brought her aboard. It would also reward someone who seems to have the country’s best interests at heart. Romney, interestingly, would be following the example of his father, George, who went from Richard Nixon’s adversary to his housing secretary, because a person can arguably do more on the field, under a flawed coach, than on the sidelines, grip- ing. A person can potentially steer the game in a better direction. So there’s a Trump tweet I do hope to see, at whatever hour he likes: “Impressive dinner with Mitt Romney. I believe he can help us MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. He’s hired!” LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The gift of music annon Beach Community Church celebrates the gift of music in our local community by announcing the intent to purchase a new concert quality grand piano in 2017 to benefit our whole com- munity. This holiday season, give our community the gift of music by donating to the Grand Piano Fund at Cannon Beach Community Church. The total fund to be raised is $50,000, and Community Church has already received a $10,000 donation. Funds may be designated to the Grand Piano Fund, and sent to Cannon Beach Commu- nity Church, P.O. Box 37, Cannon Beach, OR, 97110, or made online at www.beachcommunity.org Our county has a limited num- ber of performing arts musical venues. One of the finest venues in South County for music events is the Cannon Beach Community Church. Bono declared that “music can change the world because it can change people.” Cannon Beach Community Church has been help- ing to change people through music for 85 years, since 1931. Weekly, Cannon Beach Com- munity Church hosts two of our community music groups, the Can- non Beach Chorus and the North Oregon Coast Symphony. Annu- ally, Cannon Beach Commu- nity Church hosts multiple music events, including recitals, choral concerts, touring music groups, classical concerts, and seasonal music events such as, the Can- C non Beach Chorus concert at Can- non Beach Community Church at 7 p.m. Dec. 9. The most frequent music offered at Community Church is in worship, including contemporary (Sunday, 9 a.m.); classic (10:45 a.m.); and evensong (first and third Sundays at 6 p.m.). We invite you to join us in the gift of music in worship this Advent and Christmas season. Ald- ous Huxley expressed the wonder of the gift of music when he wrote, “after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inex- pressible is music.” DAVID ROBINSON Lead pastor, Cannon Beach Community Church Rigged vote onald Trump was right, the election was rigged. Presi- dent-elect Trump has the Elec- toral College to thank for the rig- ging. Wyoming has a population of 586,000 with three electoral votes, while California has a population of 38.8 million with 55 electoral votes, giving Wyoming one elec- toral vote for each 195,000 votes, and giving California one elec- toral vote for each 800,000 votes. To balance the scale, California should have 220 electoral votes. The presidential election is the only election in the country where the majority or plurality doesn’t win the election. Our politicians wave the flag and say “Get out and vote, every vote counts.” I voted D for Hillary, but some rancher in Wyoming’s vote counted more than mine, so actually every vote doesn’t count. Al Gore won the plurality back in 2000. If Al Gore could have moved into the White House, there’s a good likelihood there would have been no Iraq, no tax break for the wealthy, $10 tril- lion less debt (the cost of the tax break and Iraq). There also would be a good likelihood that the U.S. would be leading the world in alternative energy. Now we soon will have Presi- dent-elect Donald Trump, a lying charlatan for president, who most likely will do more damage than Bush — if that is possible — and still keep the country from imploding. The Electoral College has zero chance of being repealed. Social Security is in jeopardy, as well as Obamacare. The climate com- mitment Obama signed in Paris? Trump vowed to tear it up. The current almost 70 percent corpo- rate-favored decisions will climb to 80 percent, or more, for many years to come. Roe vs. Wade is gone within two years. Planned Parenthood will probably be another casualty. Anyone who thinks that all these things are good for the coun- try is mired down in his wee-little- world on a single issue that caused him to vote for Trump in the first place. MURRAY E. STANLEY JR. Astoria
