OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2017
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
Obama’s presidency
will endure test of time
David Plechl/For The Daily Astorian
Chris Brumitt, 10, of Astoria, enjoyed a day off school and headed
outside to snowboard with friends last week. They improvised a
jump, and those daring enough threw themselves at it. “This is a
blast,” said Brumitt. “We don’t get that much snow around here.”
The crab season has kept the U.S. Coast Guard busy in waters off the
North Coast.
A situation that began at about 2 a.m. Sunday ended with an eight-hour
tow by a boat from Coast Guard Station Grays Harbor.
The crew had been underway for nearly 13 hours by the time it returned
from towing the 65-foot fishing vessel Betty Lee, which had broken down
on Washington’s Queets River, said Senior Chief Jeff Gearhart, search and
rescue controller at USCG Group Astoria today.
Also Sunday morning, a 47-foot motor lifeboat crew from Station Cape
Disappointment towed the 60-foot vessel Sunset Charge to safety after it
lost its ability to steer off the Long Beach Peninsula.
The Clatsop Community College Board of Directors is con-
sidering another bond measure, but this time it would be aimed
at building a new campus in Warrenton.
“I think it seems clear to them that the voters have a prefer-
ence,” CCC President Greg Hamann said today. “But (the direc-
tors) haven’t made a decision.”
How many gallons of gas are sold in Astoria during a year?
The answer to that question will cost the city almost $2,000, but could
lead to a big-dollar return.
That’s because Astoria and Warrenton are considering a gas tax. If it’s
approved, they would join the 12 other Oregon cities which tack on an aver-
age of 3 cents per gallon. Under state law, the money must be used for street
maintenance and repairs.
50 years ago — 1966
A new steamship company is being formed by Castle and
Cooke, Inc. and Astoria will be one of its principal ports of call,
company president Malcom MacNaughton told Chamber of
Commerce members here Monday night at their annual dinner.
MacNaughton said with acquisition of three surplus World
War II C-4 cargo ships and possible construction of two 25-knot
vessels, the world-wide Castle and Cooke enterprise will be haul-
ing cargo from the Gulf and West Coasts to the Hawaiian islands
in direct competition with Matson Lines, now the chief freight
line to Hawaii. Castle and Cooke sold its share of Matson several
years ago under pressure from the U.S. government.
“I see no likelihood that Tongue Point will be closed as a Job Corps Cen-
ter,” U.S. Rep. Wendell Wyatt said here Thursday during a brief visit to his
home town.
“As long as we have the basic Job Corps concept, I will battle to see that
Tongue Point is maintained as an operating center,” he added.
“I think the Job Corps concept will survive, although future of the entire
Office of Economic Opportunity is uncertain,” he said. He predicted the Job
Corps might be assigned to the Department of Labor and some other OEO
programs, such as Head Start, might go to the Health-Education-Welfare
Department if OEO is broken up.
A new crankshaft for engine number one of the Coast Guard
cutter Yocona arrived on board Tuesday afternoon to replace a
shaft broken at sea earlier this month.
The 12- foot- 7- inch long steel shaft was hoisted to the rear
main deck and winched through passageways, then lowered to
the engine room where it will be installed by Astoria Marine
Construction company workmen.
75 years ago — 1941
Twenty representatives of Astoria’s automotive businesses and allied
services met today in the county courthouse to discuss methods of inspec-
tion and inspecting agencies in connection with the rationing of new auto-
mobile tires.
The meeting was called by Neil Morfitt, chairman of the Clatsop
defense council, upon request by the governor. Tire rationing became effec-
tive today and machinery was immediately devised to determining how,
among those persons eligible for new tires, the certificate of inspection is to
be provided and by whom.
The Astoria school board has acquired without cost from the
city and county a tract of 39 lots lying just east of Gyro field for
use as a parking ground and ultimately for construction of a new
high school building when and if it is necessary to build one.
Clatsop County motor vehicle operators by noon today had purchased
the 500 motor vehicle use stamps which arrived at the post office Friday
afternoon and Hana Bue, assistant postmaster, estimated that probably
2,000 more stamps would be needed to fill the demand of owners in the
immediate vicinity.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama help paint a mural of Martin Luther King, Jr., in
the community room of the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Family Shelter in Washington, D.C., Monday.
The mural, “Wall of Hope,” was created by artist Omatayo Akinbolajo.
By DAVID LEONHARDT
New York Times News Service
W
hen Barack Obama ran
for president in 2008, he
understood, without quite
saying it, that there had been no
highly successful
Democratic presi-
dent in decades.
Bill Clinton
made the country
a better place,
but his biggest
legislative plans failed and he was
beset by scandal. John F. Kennedy,
though popular in retrospect, had his
agenda stalled in Congress when he
was killed. Harry Truman left office
deeply unpopular. Jimmy Carter lost
re-election.
And Lyndon Johnson, despite
grand domestic achievements, was
driven from office. The chant “Hey,
hey, LBJ, how many kids did you
kill today?” doesn’t exactly suggest
progressive heroism.
This history of liberal disappoint-
ment was the subtext of a revealing
early comment from Obama:
“Reagan changed the trajectory
of America in a way that Richard
Nixon did not and in a way that Bill
Clinton did not.” The history also
led Obama to reject the advice of
his first Treasury secretary that their
legacy should be preventing another
depression. “That’s not enough,”
Obama replied.
It wasn’t enough because of the
depth of the country’s problems.
Soaring inequality. Unregulated
Wall Street. Underperforming
schools. Millions lacking health
insurance. Climate change.
More than a few times during
Obama’s presidency, he has seemed
to be following the pattern of liberal
disappointment. The left would
despair that he was too soft, while
the right would cast him as either
evil or hapless. Just when he seemed
to have conquered his critics, the
most shocking threat came along:
the election of Donald Trump.
In a few days, Trump and con-
gressional Republicans will have the
power to begin undoing Obama’s
presidency. And yet they are going
to have a harder time than many
people realize.
A clear explanation of why
appears in a new book, “Audacity,”
by Jonathan Chait of New York
magazine, one of today’s must-read
political journalists. He documents
the scale of Obama’s domestic pol-
icy, on health care, taxes, finance,
climate, civil rights and education.
Chait also explains why it won’t
simply disappear.
While Trump will obviously be
able to reverse some policies, he
will also face obstacles. First, some
of Obama’s changes are popular,
even if passing them was hard. Look
at Obamacare. Republicans promise
to repeal it, but have accepted
Obama’s terms of the debate: They
claim that they won’t take health
insurance away. The baseline has
been reset.
... A vast
majority of
Americans born
in the past few
decades share
Obama’s vision.
And history
is ultimately
written by the
young.
Second, Obama’s presidency
unleashed changes that Washington
doesn’t control. Many states have
become less tolerant of poorly
performing schools. Climate policy
helped make clean energy increas-
ingly cost-competitive, on its own.
Third, Senate Democrats still
have the ability to filibuster some
Republican wishes, including the
reversal of financial regulation.
“The fatalistic conclusion that
Trump can erase Obama’s achieve-
ments is overstated — perhaps even
completely false,” Chait writes.
The book is a brave one, because
journalists are usually loath to call
a politician successful, for fear of
being branded naive or partisan.
We’re comfortable calling balls as
balls, but prefer to criticize strikes
as imperfect. (And all strikes, like
all politicians, are indeed imper-
fect.) As a result, we too often give
an overly negative view of current
events only to wax nostalgic about
those same events decades later.
In truth, Obama succeeded by
taking a rigorous, evidence-based
approach to government. He began
trying to broker bipartisan deals
and, when that failed, governed as a
tough Democrat, with crucial help
from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Obama’s mistakes, like Syria, were
serious, but no president yet has
avoided serious errors.
Obama leaves office as the most
successful Democrat since Franklin
Roosevelt. His effect on the
“trajectory of America,” to use his
benchmark, was certainly smaller
than Roosevelt’s, but is in the same
league as Reagan’s. Obama did
more while in office, while Reagan
better protected his policy changes,
thanks to Republican gains in state
and congressional elections — and
the victory of his chosen successor.
Obama’s glaring failure on that
last count leaves his allies needing
to fight, hard, to defend their suc-
cesses, rather than to make further
progress on problems that badly
need it, like climate and inequality.
But it’s a testament to the last eight
years that progressives have so
much to defend.
“Any large scale of reorder-
ing of power and resources in
American life will inevitably face
resistance, sometimes for decades,”
Chait writes. It happened after
Reconstruction, the New Deal and
the civil rights movement. But
by continuing to fight, through
victory and setback, the advocates
of a freer, more broadly prosperous
country won many more than they
lost.
When future historians look back
on today, they’re likely to come
to a similar conclusion. They are
also likely to believe that Obama’s
vision of America was far superior
to Trump’s. After all, a vast majority
of Americans born in the past few
decades share Obama’s vision. And
history is ultimately written by the
young.