OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 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 Oregon Community Foundation, which recently
approved $162,600 in grants to North Coast nonprofits. The
grants awarded include $25,000 to the Columbia Memorial
Hospital Foundation toward the construction of the CMH/OHSU
Cancer Center to expand local access to advanced cancer treat-
ment, and a $25,000 grant to the Lower Columbia Hispanic
Council in Astoria to support and expand adult and youth edu-
cation programs through increased staff capacity. Additionally,
the foundation, with the Oregon Cultural Trust, also awarded
$11,240 in Clatsop County Cultural Coalition grants to 10 other
local organizations. In total, the North Coast grants contributed to
more than $8.5 million awarded by the OCF statewide.
• The Seaside-based North Coast Land Conservancy and
the private investment equity firm Onion Peak Holdings, which
took the first steps toward the acquisition of 3,300 acres of tim-
berland from Stimson Lumber Co., in what
could be the largest private land-preser-
vation deal in western Oregon. The deal,
signed in November, gives the land con-
servancy five years to raise money to com-
plete the transaction. Conservancy Executive
Director Katie Voelke called it a “monumen-
tal act of preservation.” The land is located
Katie
between Tillamook Head and Nehalem Bay,
Voelke
and together with Oswald West State Park
and Cape Falcon Marine Reserve, the acquisi-
tion would create a conservation corridor of more than 29 square
miles linking land and sea.
• Senior Library Assistant Patty Skinner, who is retir-
ing after 17 years at the Astoria Library. As
the senior library assistant, Skinner led the
library’s Preschool Story Time sessions,
developed children’s reading programs and
served as a resource for helping parents with
building their children’s reading abilities and
habits. Library Director Jimmy Pearson called
Skinner “awesome,” and said the library is
“definitely going to feel her loss.” Pearson
Patty
said he is seeking a part-time successor who
Skinner
will focus solely on children’s activities.
• The Warrenton Business Association, which recently con-
ducted a ”First Responder Appreciation Event” at Camp Rilea
that raised $5,600. The proceeds from the dinner event and silent
auction were evenly divided between the city’s police and fire
departments.
• Supporters of Clatsop Animal Assistance, which conducted
a fundraiser last weekend at Fort George Lovell Showroom. The
event, which raised more than $40,000, featured raffles, a silent
auction, a bake sale and pet pictures with Santa to benefit the
Clatsop County Animal Shelter. The proceeds will be used for
veterinary care and adoption programs for dogs and cats at the
shelter.
CALLOUTS
This week’s Callouts go to:
• The U.S. Postal Service, which hasn’t been able to install
a new a cluster mailbox near Irving Avenue and 22nd Street in
Astoria after the one there was
vandalized and severely dam-
aged in September. The vandal-
ism has forced 12 postal customers
to travel to the Astoria Post Office
to pick up their daily mail. Sarah
Green, the post office supervisor,
said a new replacement collections
box has arrived at the post office,
but the post office is still waiting to
receive the hardware to assemble
the box so it can be installed.
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Damaged cluster mailbox
near Irving and 22nd Street.
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.
For Mitt Romney,
dinner and a kiss-off
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times News Service
F
arewell, Mitt Romney,
farewell.
Romney, who once spent
nearly a decade being rejected by
the American elec-
torate, got the
heave-ho from
Donald Trump this
week — passed
over for the secre-
tary of state nom-
ination in favor of an oil execu-
tive who is great pals with Vladimir
Putin.
It is, of course, extremely fash-
ionable in Trump’s Washington to be
great pals with Vladimir Putin. Also
to be a general or a climate change
denier. Romney was always suspi-
cious of Russia, never served in the
military, and although he came up
with multiple positions on the envi-
ronment over the years, he would
still have been one of the only Trump
nominees to have sporadically
held an opinion that the globe was
warming.
It’s not like the list of appoin-
tees doesn’t have variety. Rick Perry
once competed in “Dancing With the
Stars.” Linda McMahon, the new
head of the Small Business Admin-
istration, is probably the only one
who’s performed in a professional
wrestling competition. McMahon is
among the highest-ranking female
nominees.
At the very tiptop, so far, is
Elaine Chao, Trump’s pick for sec-
retary of transportation. We failed
to elect a woman president, but if
Chao is confirmed, there will at
least be a woman 13th in the line of
succession.
On Wednesday, Trump named
Romney’s niece as head of the
Republican National Committee.
Do you think that was an attempt to
make Mitt feel better — or worse?
He had reasons to think he’d get
more than a job for his brother’s
daughter.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President-elect Donald Trump, center, eats dinner with Mitt Rom-
ney, right, and Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus at Jean-Georges
restaurant Nov. 29 in New York.
Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo
Russian President Vladimir Putin presents ExxonMobil CEO Rex Til-
lerson with a Russian medal at an award ceremony of heads and em-
ployees of energy companies at the St. Petersburg economic forum
in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2012.
‘Torture’
Fine and dandy
It’s true that during the campaign
he had called Trump “a phony, a
fraud,” and said some rather unflat-
tering things about Trump Univer-
sity, Trump Magazine, Trump Vodka
and Trump Steaks. But after the elec-
tion, everything seemed fine and
dandy. He was getting meetings with
the president-elect, being dined (not
wined; they’re both teetotalers) at a
fancy Manhattan restaurant in front
of half the national media.
Hard not to feel optimistic when
the other apparent top finalists for
state were David Petraeus, a man
currently on probation for sharing
military secrets with his mistress,
and Rudy Giuliani, who had so come
to resemble a bad-tempered Rottwei-
ler that he did everything but howl at
the moon.
After his big public dinner date
with Trump, Romney burbled to
reporters that they had a “discus-
sion about affairs throughout the
world, and these discussions I’ve
had with him have been enlightening
and interesting and engaging. I’ve
enjoyed them very, very much.”
The man he’d denounced so vig-
orously during the campaign, he
added, had “a message of inclusion
and bringing people together, and his
vision is something which obviously
connected with the American people
in a very powerful way.” If you had
asked Romney at that moment what
AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
Ronna Romney McDaniel, the
Michigan Republican Party chair,
speaks before a Republican pres-
idential primary debate in Detroit
in March. President-elect Donald
Trump wants Ronna Romney Mc-
Daniel to be national party chair-
woman, in part as a reward for the
party carrying Michigan for the
first time in 28 years.
he thought about Trump University,
he’d probably have announced plans
to enroll.
But then, whammo. He was
passed over for Rex Tillerson, the
CEO of Exxon Mobil, who seemed
to pop up out of nowhere. Trump
was reportedly moved by recom-
mendations from Republican lumi-
naries like former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates and former Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice and
Gates have a consulting firm that
counts Tillerson’s company as a cli-
ent, but that had nothing whatsoever
to do with their miraculous, totally
coincidental and spontaneous deci-
sions to drop his name.
Roger Stone, a political consul-
tant who frequently presents him-
self as a Friend of Trump, told a radio
talk show host that the whole woo-
ing of Mitt was just an effort to “tor-
ture” the former presidential candi-
date. Another theory is that Romney’s
problem was a failure to apologize for
those campaign insults.
It’s possible. Romney did once
write a book called “No Apology.”
However, given his track record, a
better title might have been “No Apol-
ogy Normally, Unless Something Else
Happens.”
Should we feel sorry for him?
He’d have been a more qualified pick
than Tillerson. But really, Romney has
been such a jerk during this election
that it’s hard not to giggle.
He made a huge, dramatic profile
in courage out of his refusal to support
Trump, but he didn’t have the spine
to say that he’d be voting for Hillary
Clinton. Instead, Romney straddled
that swamp masquerading as moral
high ground where he rejected every-
body, took no responsibility for any-
body, and therefore was no help at all.
Then, when the man he denounced
as a fraud got elected, Mitt was
instantly in the employment line, grin-
ning and blowing kisses. Suddenly
we were reminded of all the years of
political shape-shifting, when Rom-
ney’s opinions on everything from
gun control to health care changed
with every twitch of the polls.
And, of course, he’s the guy who
once drove to Canada with the fam-
ily Irish setter strapped to the roof of
the car. The worst part was his excuse
— not “too many kids in the back
seat” but “my dog loves fresh air.”
Somewhere, the spirit of Seamus is
laughing.