OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 19, 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
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
The guardrails can’t contain Trump
This week’s Shoutouts go to:
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Flowers were a popular item at the first Astoria Sunday Market of
the year last weekend that coincided with Mother’s Day.
• Astoria Sunday Market, which operates through a nonprofit
organization by the same name and began its 17th season last
weekend, on Mother’s Day. The opening day brought an overflow
crowd downtown throughout the afternoon browsing the booths
of vendors offering locally-made products that have been hand-
crafted, grown, created or gathered by the farmers, craftspeople
and artisans. Sunday Market also features live music and an appe-
tizing food court. The marketplace runs every Sunday downtown
on 12th Street from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Oct. 8. The Astoria
Sunday Market organization has a goal of revitalizing downtown,
with funds being reinvested in downtown projects, enterprises and
efforts that support the nonprofit’s mission.
• Margaret Frimoth, who was chosen to be Clatsop
Community College’s new vice president of academic affairs.
Frimoth is the director of the successful Lives in Transition pro-
gram, but will be stepping down from it to oversee academic stan-
dards and prepare the college for its accreditation review in two
years. Teena Toyas, who had been sharing the duties with Frimoth
as the interim vice president, was named dean of transfer edu-
cation and will focus on scheduling, curriculum and instruction,
while teaching part time.
• The Seaside Visitors Bureau, which was honored by Travel
Oregon with the Outstanding Overall Oregon Marketing Program
Award in its 2016 Travel and Tourism Industry Achievement
Awards. The recognition came during the recent 2017 Governor’s
Conference on Tourism in Salem. The award was presented to
the visitor’s bureau after it completed a full rebranding effort that
included a new responsive website and a more visual and con-
tent-driven visitor’s guide.
• Local high school athletes who are competing in the state
high school track and field championships today and Saturday at
historic Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
The Astoria girls team is favored to repeat as champions in Class
4A after capturing their third consecutive Cowapa League title last
weekend. The Astoria boys team is sending four athletes to state.
Seaside High School has one girl and five boys who qualified for
the competition. In the 3A division, three girls and four boys from
Warrenton qualified for the meet, while in Class 2A two girls and
one boy from Knappa will be competing. In Class 1A two girls
and one boy will be representing Jewell High School at the meet.
CALLOUTS
This week’s Callouts go to:
• Scammers who have been targeting local businesses
with what the Better Business Bureau calls the “Vanity Award
Scheme.” In the ploy, the scammers send email notices to small
businesses and nonprofits notifying them they are a recipient of
a “Best of” award of one of the region’s cities or organizations,
but in order to claim their trophy or personalized plaque, the busi-
nesses are asked to pay first. The BBB serving the Northwest says
to avoid falling for these types of scams, businesses should ask
plenty of questions because most awards don’t come with a cost to
the recipient. Learn everything about who is giving the award, and
if it is coming from a mystery company, chances are it’s part of a
scam. Businesses and organizations that offer legitimate awards
will usually be willing to provide detailed information on why a
specific company received the award, and who nominated them.
Businesses can research the company’s BBB Business Review at
bbb.org to ensure the offer is legit.
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.
ASHINGTON — The
pleasant surprise of the
First 100 Days is over.
The action was hectic, heated, often
confused, but well
within the bounds
of normalcy.
Policy (e.g., health
care) was being
hashed out, a
Supreme Court
nominee confirmed, foreign policy
challenges (e.g. North Korea)
addressed.
Donald Trump’s character —
volatile, impulsive, often self-de-
structive — had not changed since
the campaign. But it seemed as if
the guardrails of our democracy —
Congress, the courts, the states, the
media, the Cabinet — were keeping
things within bounds.
Then came the last 10 days. The
country is now caught in the inter-
nal maelstrom that is the mind of
Donald Trump. We are in the realm
of the id. Chaos reigns. No guard-
rails can hold.
Normal activity disappears.
North Korea’s launch of an alarm-
ing new missile and a problematic
visit from the president of Turkey
(locus of our most complicated and
tortured allied relationship) barely
evoke notice. Nothing can escape
the black hole of a three-part presi-
dential meltdown.
• First, the firing of James
Comey. Trump, consumed by the
perceived threat of the Russia probe
to his legitimacy, executes a mind-
lessly impulsive dismissal of the
FBI director. He then surrounds it
with a bodyguard of lies — attrib-
uting the dismissal to a Justice
Department recommendation —
which his staff goes out and parrots.
Only to be undermined and humili-
ated when the boss contradicts them
within 48 hours.
Result? Layers of falsehoods
giving the impression of an elabo-
rate cover-up — in the absence of
a crime. At least Nixon was trying
to quash a third-rate burglary and
associated felonies. Here we don’t
even have a body, let alone a smok-
ing gun. Trump insists there’s no
there there, but acts as if the there is
everywhere.
• Second, Trump’s divulging
classified information to the Rus-
sians. A stupid, needless mistake.
But despite the media hysteria,
hardly an irreparable national secu-
rity calamity.
The Israelis, whose asset might
have been jeopardized, are no doubt
upset, but the notion that this will
cause a great rupture to their (and
others’) intelligence relationship
with the U.S. is nonsense. These
kinds of things happen all the time.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
President Donald Trump, followed by Colombian President Juan
Manuel Santos, arrives for their joint news conference in the East
Room of the White House Thursday.
When the Obama administration
spilled secrets of the anti-Iranian
Stuxnet virus or blew the cover of
a double agent in Yemen, there was
none of the garment-rending that
followed Trump’s disclosure.
Republicans
are beginning
to panic.
Once again, however, the cov-
er-up far exceeded the crime.
Trump had three top officials come
out and declare the disclosure story
false. The next morning, Trump
tweeted he was entirely within his
rights to reveal what he revealed,
thereby verifying the truth of the
story. His national security adviser
H.R. McMaster floundered his way
through a news conference, trying
to reconcile his initial denial with
Trump’s subsequent contradiction.
It was a sorry sight.
• Is it any wonder, therefore, that
when the third crisis hit on Tuesday
night — the Comey memo claiming
that Trump tried to get him to call
off the FBI investigation of Michael
Flynn — Republicans hid under
their beds rather than come out to
defend the president? The White
House hurriedly issued a state-
ment denying the story. The state-
ment was unsigned. You want your
name on a statement that your boss
could peremptorily contradict in a
twitter-second?
Republicans are beginning
to panic. One sign is the notion
now circulating that, perhaps to
fend off ultimate impeachment,
Trump be dumped by way of 25th
Amendment.
That’s the post-Kennedy assas-
sination measure that provides for
removing an incapacitated president
on the decision of the vice president
and a majority of the Cabinet.
This is the worst idea since Leno
at 10 p.m. It perverts the very intent
of the amendment. It was meant for
a stroke, not stupidity; for Alzhei-
mer’s, not narcissism. Otherwise,
what it authorizes is a coup — will-
ful overthrow by the leader’s own
closest associates.
I thought we had progressed
beyond the Tudors and the Stuarts.
Moreover, this would be seen by
millions as an establishment usur-
pation to get rid of a disruptive out-
sider. It would be the most destabi-
lizing event in American political
history — the gratuitous overthrow
of an essential constant in Ameri-
can politics, namely the fixedness of
the presidential term (save for high
crimes and misdemeanors).
Trump’s behavior is deeply dis-
turbing but hardly surprising. His
mercurial nature is not the prod-
uct of a post-inaugural adder sting
at Mar-a-Lago. It’s been there all
along. And the American electorate
chose him nonetheless.
What to do? Strengthen the
guardrails. Redouble oversight of
this errant president. Follow the
facts, especially the Comey memos.
And let the chips fall where they
may.
But no tricks, constitutional or
otherwise.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Providing enjoyment
I
t is regrettable, but an unfortunate
sign of our times, that Gearhart
pub owner Terry Lowenberg must
not only seek permission from the
city government to install four lot-
tery machines in his place of busi-
ness, located on his own property,
but that he must appeal to that gov-
ernment on the grounds that the
machines will be “good for Gearhart
and good for Oregon” (“Gearhart’s
video lottery decision challenged,”
The Daily Astorian, May 12).
The Gearhart City Council, in
denying the request, is quoted as
saying, “there is no evidence of
demand for the machines in the cen-
tral city core.” Of course there is
not. The “evidence” of demand can
only come after the machines are
installed, and the measure of that
“demand” will become evident from
the amount of money patrons spend
on those machines.
Mayor Matt Brown is then
quoted, after casting his “no” vote
against the machines: “It’s hard
for me to see a public need was
proven.” It is not for Lowenberg to
secure a public need. That, in fact,
is the business of government, and
those public needs are a fire depart-
ment, police protection, clean water,
paved roads, etc. After needs, come
enjoyments, or, those things, great
and small, which can make life an
occasional delight rather than a daily
struggle to secure needs.
Enjoyments are private, personal
and individual. No one else but me
is qualified to say what I will need
by way of enjoyment. Lowenberg is
hoping, as all business people hope,
to provide, profitably, a modicum of
enjoyment to those residents of, and
visitors to, the city of Gearhart. His
success can only be measured by
the number of patrons who visit his
pub, and the amount of dollars they
choose to spend. If he is success-
ful, he will have thereby provided
that evidence of demand, which the
Gearhart City Council and Mayor
Brown require of him.
And, what could be better for
Gearhart, better for Oregon, or better
for all people, than those moments
of convivial enjoyment which we
are fortunate enough to find here and
there?
LOUIS SARGENT
Gearhart