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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2016)
OPINION 6A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 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 Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 10 years ago this week — 2006 About 150 Clatsop County electricity customers remained without power this morning, the last of thousands of homes and businesses left in the dark by Thursday’s powerful windstorm. The storm, bringing gusts that topped 100 mph, knocked out power to the entire county as trees toppled onto power lines throughout the area. A major frustration for county residents during last week’s windstorm and power outages was the loss of radio sta- tion KAST, which went off the air Thursday afternoon and remained silent for two days. A neglected generator — bought for the radio station by Clatsop County — has been pinpointed as the source of the problem. But who’s to blame for the situation has embroiled county officials in angry debate, including a heated exchange between Sheriff Tom Bergin and the Clatsop County commissioners Monday night. The back-up generator intended to power the station during electricity outages failed to start, and required several hours of work by a county mechanic to get up and running. Even then, the signal from the station was so weak it could not be picked up more than a short distance away. Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin, under fire from some quarters over his handling of the county’s response during last week’s wind storm, said he stands by his decision that the event and its aftermath didn’t require the use of his department’s emergency operations facility. 50 years ago — 1966 Astoria merchants and their enlarged staffs moved today into the final week of what they believe will be the best Christmas shop- ping season in the community’s history. Stores will be open all day and all evening through Thursday. Stores will close at regular times Saturday afternoon, Christmas Eve. Most downtown retail dealers queried by The Daily Astorian in the past few days have reported Christmas business volume up File Photo from a year ago — some say as This concrete slab, weigh- much as 20 percent up. ing 7 tons, is the first of 27 Possibility that the U.S. Maritime Administration will close the Astoria reserve fleet some time in 1968 was disclosed by J.W. Gulick, acting admin- istrator, in a letter to U.S. Sen. Wayne Morse recently. that will provide the exterior facing of the new Astoria Li- brary. They will be fastened to steel framework of the build- ing with metal clip angles. Windows will be installed in spaces between slabs. The City Council may attempt to annex the Youngs Bay shore area from the old to the new highway bridges across Youngs Bay by voluntary agreement of property owners involved. The council Monday night heard Ray Wood of the Jay- cees report that he has been unable to obtain agreement of all Youngs Bay shore people to annexation to the city. 75 years ago — 1941 It need occasion no surprise that enemy submarines are operating within 20 miles of the nation’s Pacific coastline as revealed by the tor- pedoing of one tanker and the shelling of two others offshore from Cal- ifornia Saturday. Such a development of the war was to be expected and unquestionably has been expected by the Navy and Army. Japan has a good many long-range submarines and logically might be expected to send some of them to prey on our coastal and intercoastal shipping, not alone for the damage done to it but to keep some of our forces occupied on this side of the Pacific. The actual happening brings the war close to home and should be convincing to those prone to scoff at the fear of attacks on the country. More than 57,000 items of first class mail raced through the cancellation machine at the Astoria post office Monday in the biggest day of business in the post office since 1849, when it was established. In the previous biggest day in December 1940, the automatic cancellation marker checked off 47,800 pieces of first class mail. Stamp sales Saturday exceeded $1,000 with $850 sold at the regular stamp window, and the balance at the parcel post window. Ross McIntyre of Portland, representing the Governor’s Office, met with representatives of the Clatsop defense council in the City Council chambers today, to discuss general plans for partial, complete and tempo- rary evacuation of communities in the area. The meeting was called for long-range planning and was not related to any immediate or specific emergency. Mr. and Mrs. Pete Holstrom said this week they had received word from their son Edward that he was safe and well, unin- jured by the Japanese attack on Honolulu. Edward Holstrom is in the Army, stationed at Schofield Barracks, Honolulu, and was there when the Nipponese planes roared their destruction on the American Pacific island. Useful idiots galore in hacking tale By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service A n editorial in The Times described Donald Trump as a “useful idiot” serving Russian interests. That may not be exactly right. After all, useful idiots are supposed to be unaware of how they’re being used, but Trump prob- ably knows very well how much he owes to Vlad- imir Putin. Remember, he once openly appealed to the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. Still, the general picture of a president-elect who owes his posi- tion in part to intervention by a foreign power, and shows every sign of being prepared to use U.S. policy to reward that power, is accurate. But let’s be honest: Trump is by no means the only useful idiot in this story. As recent reporting by The Times makes clear, bad guys couldn’t have hacked the U.S. elec- tion without a lot of help, both from U.S. politicians and from the news media. Let me explain what I mean by saying that bad guys hacked the election. I’m not talking about some kind of wild conspiracy the- ory. I’m talking about the obvious effect of two factors on voting: the steady drumbeat of Russia-con- trived leaks about Democrats, and only Democrats, and the dramatic, totally unjustified last-minute inter- vention by the FBI, which appears to have become a highly partisan institution, with distinct alt-right sympathies. Does anyone really doubt that these factors moved swing-state ballots by at least 1 percent? If they did, they made the difference in Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn- sylvania — and therefore handed Trump the election, even though he received almost 3 million fewer total votes. Yes, the election was hacked. By the way, people who respond to this observation by talking about mistakes in Clinton campaign strategy are missing the point, and continuing their useful idiocy. All campaigns make mis- takes. Since when do these mis- takes excuse subversion of an election by a foreign power and a rogue domestic law enforcement agency? Why it worked So why did the subversion work? It’s important to realize that the postelection CIA declaration that Russia had intervened on behalf of the Trump campaign was a confir- mation, not a revelation (although we’ve now learned that Putin was personally involved in the effort). The pro-Putin tilt of Trump and his advisers was obvious months before the election — I wrote about it in July. By midsummer the close relationship between WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence was also obvious, as was the site’s growing alignment with white nationalists. Did Republican politicians, so big on flag waving and impugn- ing their rivals’ patriotism, reject this foreign aid to their cause? No, they didn’t. In fact, as far as I can tell, no major Republican figure was even willing to criticize Trump Toru Hanai/Pool Photo Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen in Nagato, western Japan, Thursday. The Obama administration suggested that Putin personal- ly authorized the hacking of Democratic officials’ email accounts in the run-up to the presidential election, which intelligence agencies believe was designed to help Donald Trump prevail. The White House also leveled an astounding attack on Trump himself, saying he must have known of Russia’s interference. Joel Ryan/Invision The head of the wax figure of President-elect Donald Trump is worked on by coloring supervisor, Verity Talbot, at a studio in west London in December. It might be more comfortable to pretend that things are OK, that American democracy isn’t on the edge. But that would be taking useful idiocy to the next level. when he directly asked Russia to hack Clinton. This shouldn’t come as a sur- prise. It has long been obvious — except, apparently, to the news media — that the modern GOP is a radical institution that is ready to violate democratic norms in the pursuit of power. Why should the norm of not accepting foreign assistance be any different? News media The bigger surprise was the behavior of the news media, and I don’t mean fake news; I mean big, prestigious organizations. Leaked emails, which everyone knew were probably the product of Russian hacking, were breathlessly reported as shocking revelations, even when they mostly revealed nothing more than the fact that Democrats are people. Meanwhile, the news media dutifully played up the Clinton server story, which never involved any evidence of wrongdoing, but merged in the public mind into the perception of a vast “email” scan- dal when there was nothing there. And then there was the Comey letter. The FBI literally found noth- ing at all. But the letter dominated front pages and TV coverage, and that coverage — by news organi- zations that surely knew that they were being used as political weap- ons — was almost certainly deci- sive on Election Day. So as I said, there were a lot of useful idiots this year, and they made the election hack a success. Now what? If we’re going to have any hope of redemption, peo- ple will have to stop letting them- selves be used the way they were in 2016. And the first step is to admit the awful reality of what just happened. That means not trying to change the subject to campaign strategy, which is a legitimate topic but has no bearing on the question of elec- toral subversion. It means not mak- ing excuses for news coverage that empowered that subversion. And it means not acting as if this was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legit- imacy beyond the bare legal requirements. It might be more comfortable to pretend that things are OK, that American democracy isn’t on the edge. But that would be taking useful idiocy to the next level.
