OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2007
A roof repair job at the Astoria post office has sparked concern among
employees that the federal government isn’t protecting the integrity of the
historic building.
The city of Astoria has received several complaints about the work,
but according to Community Development Director Rosemary Johnson,
the city can’t do anything about it because it has no jurisdiction over the
federal building at Eight and Commercial streets.
Johnson said most work on commercial buildings in Astoria requires
a building permit — even repairs. But the Astoria post office, which is on
the national historic building register because it is the first post office built
west of the Rocky Mountains, is exempt from the local review process.
“Normally you’d have to do a historic review with any exterior alter-
ation to a historic property, and if you’re changing the design or material,
that has to go through the Historic Landmarks Commission for approval,”
said Johnson. “The building is on the national historic building register,
but it’s a federal building on federal property.”
The girls’ Class 4A team leader after Day One of the Ore-
gon state track and field meet? None other than your Astoria
Fishermen.
Three Astoria athletes racked up 24 points to help the Fish-
ermen take the lead after one day of action at Eugene’s Hay-
ward Field, which was packed with more fans than usual on the
first day of the 2007 championship meet.
And thanks to a first-, a second- and a third-place finish,
the Astoria girls were atop the 4A leaderboard heading into
today’s action.
“We’re hoping to get a trophy,” said Astoria sophomore
Charlene Harber, who could be scoring some big points today
and Saturday in the 100-meter dash and triple jump. “We can
always rely on Laura (Bobek) and Jamie (Coggins).”
50 years ago — 1967
The principal parties in the
beach access controversy agreed
today upon amendments to a bill
maintaining public access to Ore-
gon’s shoreline.
Statements by Gov. Tom
McCall, House Speaker F.F.
Montgomery, State Treasurer
Robert Straub and two legislative
leaders said, “We have agreed on
a compromise.”
But it was Gov. McCall who
appeared to be the winner in the
battle over conflicting amend-
The Daily Astorian/File
ments offered to the bill.
Gov. Tom McCall, left, and Rep.
Under the compromise, Sid Bazett of Grants Pass sat on
the state would maintain pub- the controversial Surfsand motel
lic access to beach areas 16 feet logs at Cannon Beach as they
above the mean sea level mark. and others toured the coast seek-
This was the formula adopted ing a formula for HB 1601, which
today by McCall and a group of would determine how much of
oceanographers who toured the the beaches belong to whom.
beaches Saturday.
Montgomery had proposed a line 200 feet inland, or 7 feet above mean
sea level, whichever was the lesser.
The 16-foot mark generally takes in the dry sand area of northern Ore-
gon beaches, according to the measurements made Saturday.
First fish to be marked by means of clipping fins at the new
Nehalem River Salmon hatchery were going through the pro-
cess this week. The small fish are anesthetized, clipped, then
placed in a “recovery” trough, as in a hospital.
A move by the U.S. Maritime Administration apparently to move all
“priority” ships from Astoria reserve fleet base to Olympia and Suisun
Bay bases began Friday.
The Victory type freighter Greece Victory, with workmen still batten-
ing down the hatch covers, was shifted to the East Astoria mooring basin
Friday morning, to be rigged for the ocean tow to Olympia. The Greece
Victory is one of 13 priority ships that still remain at the Astoria base.
Priority ships are those scheduled for continued preservation against a
national emergency, as contrasted to the less efficient Liberty ships that
are all scheduled for scrapping.
There are 52 ships all told still at the Astoria base, but only 13 are of
“priority” class.
75 years ago — 1942
With cheery smiles and hand-wavings for the few policemen
and spectators standing around, the remaining Japanese pop-
ulation of Clatsop and Columbia counties, consisting of 60 per-
sons, left at 9 a.m. Wednesday under military convoy for the
reception center in Portland.
Thus evacuation of all Japanese and persons of Japanese
ancestry from northwestern coastal counties of Oregon had
been completed. The few Japanese in Tillamook County had
either left or been evacuated before, and number of Japanese
in Clatsop and Columbia counties had left before.
Clatsop County has been given an additional allotment of 125 truck
tires for this month, D.J. Lewis, county defense coordinator, was informed
in a message received today from the state rationing board.
The increased allotment will relieve the strain felt by logging opera-
tors to a certain extent. Many logging trucks have been laid up because
of lack of tires.
Trump and the tattlers
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
F
or a president so given to
fantasy and fond of alternative
facts, Donald Trump has been
right about one thing all along: His
government is a
shockingly leaky
vessel.
Thank heaven
for that.
It’s not judges
or senators who
will save us from the worst of
Trump, which is most of Trump.
His undoing will come from within.
Be as cynical as you want about
Washington — I certainly indulge
myself — but there remain insiders
with consciences, and some of them
actually work for the president.
They’re willing to work against
him if circumstances warrant it.
Circumstances have been warrant-
ing it, and here we are.
What we’re witnessing is
astonishing. I don’t mean Trump’s
actions — including the infuriating
accusation that he divulged highly
classified information to Russian
visitors — though those certainly
qualify. I mean how quickly the
details of this latest incident reached
journalists. I mean how quickly so
much of Trump’s embarrassing and
outrageous behavior reaches jour-
nalists, as government officials use
the very media that he demonizes to
expose his recklessness, ridicule his
cluelessness, warn Americans about
his intentions and head him off at
the pass.
This much leaking this soon
into an administration explodes the
norms of the White House every bit
as much as Trump’s own conduct
does, and it’s an indication more
powerful than just about any other
of what kind of president we have.
He is so unprepared, shows such
bad judgment and has such an
erratic temper that he’s not trusted
by people who are paid to bolster
him and who get the most intimate,
unvarnished look at him. No small
number of them have decided that
discretion isn’t always the keeping
of secrets, not if it protects bad
actors. They’re right. And they give
me hope.
In one of those nifty and
incredibly revealing confluences of
news developments, the story about
Trump’s dangerously loose lips with
the Russians came out on the same
day that the hosts of “Morning Joe”
spoke of Kellyanne Conway’s pri-
vately admitted disgust for Trump,
at least back during the campaign.
This was Conway they were
talking about, the high priestess
of hyper-spin, who can look at the
smallest droplet in the largest goblet
and pronounce the glass half full.
Even she saw the emptiness of
Trump. Even she cringed. And if
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
A television set is on in the West Wing of the White House Monday.
that’s the case, there must be more
cringing around the president than
we realized.
It’s getting only worse. Last
week in particular demonstrated
that. He keeps giving his lieutenants
lies to peddle, creating entirely
avoidable messes and then railing if
underlings don’t mop with sufficient
cheer and success. Aides will suck
up a whole lot for proximity to
power, and partisans will make
enormous compromises in the name
of the team. But at the end of the
day, they’re human. They have
limits, dignity and the mobile phone
numbers of dozens of reporters.
Trump should understand that.
He keeps telling us how smart he
He keeps
telling us how
smart he is but
showing us the
opposite, and
as our parents
always warned
us, actions
speak louder
than words.
is but showing us the opposite, and
as our parents always warned us,
actions speak louder than words.
Foolish: to demand such fierce
loyalty from the people around you
but give precious little in return. It
loosens their lips.
Foolish: to continue to treat the
Russians with a double scoop of
courtesy — here, guys, take a gan-
der at this Islamic State intelligence!
— amid a continuing investigation
into, and intensifying suspicions
about, your exact degree of coziness
with Moscow.
If he was wagering that his
words to the Russians would never
leave the room, well, that’s proof of
yet more foolishness. With Trump,
everything has been leaving the
room, by some route or another.
If he hasn’t learned that yet, he’s
uneducable.
There are people around Trump
who see him for who and what
he is. There are people who work
in his administration not because
they have great hopes for him but
because they have modest hopes
that they can bend things in a better
direction or at least mitigate the
damage. None of them were setting
themselves up to be moles. But
some of them are playing that part.
And so we knew, even before
Trump sat down with NBC’s Lester
Holt, that the White House was
spinning a fairy tale about why
Trump fired James Comey. We
knew about possible policy changes
regarding climate change and LGBT
rights before Trump was ready
to publicize them, because aides
decided to use the media as a check
and a balance.
We discovered this week that an
administration official had presented
to Trump, and that he believed, a
fake cover of a Time magazine from
the 1970s that warned of an impend-
ing ice age. And we were briefed on
his imprudent conversation with the
Russians.
All of this came from within,
and much of it reflects a concern for
country — and for truth — that’s
greater than any concern for Trump.
Foolish: the failure to account for
your aides’ common sense and
patriotism.
“Don’t be tattletales” was
another caution from our parents,
but it was imperfect — or at least
incomplete. Sometimes tattling is all
that keeps danger at bay. Swampy
as Washington can be, it still harbors
creatures who get that.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing-
ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225-
0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District
office: 12725 SW Millikan Way,
Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005.
Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-326-
5066. Web: bonamici.house. gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Office Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E.,
H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/witt/ Email: rep.bradwitt@
state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District office: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Office: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Com-
missioners: c/o County Manager, 800
Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR
97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.