OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
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
Paul Mitchell - The School in downtown Astoria might close for good —
leaving a dozen students with limited options for completing enough hours
to earn their cosmetology licenses.
About a dozen students drafted a list of ongoing problems and staged a
walkout July 17. Some planned to return to classes July 24, but the school
never reopened.
Now, the beauty school — identified as “at risk” by the state within its
first year open — may start anew at a site in downtown Portland.
Managers have had an eye on a bigger, city-based program for at least
one year, but the Oregon Department of Education director in charge of the
school’s license said he put the “kibosh” on that idea.
“It’s going to be like looking at the side of an elephant from the
Maritime Museum. I’m very sad.”
That’s how Arline LaMear, a member of the Astoria Planning
Commission, described the Englund’s proposed condominium
development before casting her “no” vote Tuesday night.
The commission denied Englund’s request for a variance that
would allow him and his partners to construct two condo build-
ings at the foot of 15th Street where his Englund Marine Supply
business used to be located. He needs the variance because the
area is not a residential zone.
Englund’s project adds fuel to a simmering controversy over
what kind and how much riverfront development is appropriate
and desirable as Astoria’s working waterfront fades into history.
50 years ago — 1967
The Daily Astorian/File
A busload of dancers from Jeanne Maddox studio performed
during an all-afternoon program Wednesday for Astoria Day at
Lloyd Center, celebrating its seventh anniversary.
It may have been a first-time experience, but Astoria City Councilman
Sven Lund says it will be a while before he will sail a Viking dragon ship
model up the Columbia to Portland again.
“It was a good trip … we did pretty well, other than a couple of wind prob-
lems,” Lund said after returning to Astoria from the three-day trip upriver.
Lund and Astoria boat builder Ron Larson were home about 56 hours
after setting sail in the 18-foot Viking ship replica last Friday. They admit-
ted their speedy return trip was aided by their wives, who drove to Portland
to meet them.
A lack of wind near Mayger forced the pair to take to the oars. Later a
power boat from Kelso aided by towing the 18-foot dragon ship to the bridge
at Longview.
The wind picked up later near Kalama, Lund said. The wind became very
strong and “things got so rough all we could do was keep going,” the coun-
cilman explained.
Asked if he would like to make the trip again, Lund replied, “No. Not
right away.
Astoria appeared Wednesday night and Thursday morning to
be taking lead position at the 42nd annual meeting of the North-
west Rivers and Harbors congress at Gearhart with its resolution
seeking a 50-foot channel from the mouth of the Columbia River
to Tongue Point.
Comments from port officials of several Oregon and Washing-
ton cities indicated prime interest during the two-day conference
would not center around the theme of pollution and beautifica-
tion but around the C.E. Hodges–drafted deep Astoria shipping
channel.
Hodges, Port of Astoria manager, drafted the resolution sev-
eral weeks ago and it was unanimously adopted by Astoria Port
commissioners. Two of the five-member Port body felt Astoria
should seek a 65 to 70-foot channel but conceded the point to what
they termed the immediate best interests of the entire Columbia
River system and its ports.
75 years ago — 1942
SALEM — Sen. Rufus C. Holman, Republican, Oregon, contends that
“criminally obsolete, woefully inadequate and poorly distributed” defense
installations guard the West Coast of the United States and Alaska.
Visiting his home state as a member of a Senate military affairs spe-
cial subcommittee, Holman told newspapermen that “grossly inadequate”
fighter plane forces were stationed in Washington and Oregon.
He directed his criticism principally at the alleged failure of American
forces to answer the attack of an axis submarine which shelled the Oregon
Coast near the Fort Stevens military reservation at the mouth of the Colum-
bia river June 21.
“Obviously fully informed of the limitations of the guns at the forts,
which are of an obsolete vintage of 1898, the Japs cruised leisurely along the
coast just out of range,” he said.
He said the defenders had computed the range and determined that the
submarine was 360 feet in length but had been unable to reply to the attack.
“The patrol planes from Tongue Point did not rise to the attack because
they weren’t there,” Holman said. “They were all away on an undisclosed
mission. The land bombers stationed at Portland were not advised of the
attack until several hours after it was over.”
GOP support for
Trump starts to crack
By DAVID LEONHARDT
New York Times News Service
A
gain and again over the past
year, Mitch McConnell and
Paul Ryan have had to decide
what kind of behav-
ior they are willing
to tolerate from
Donald Trump.
Again and again,
McConnell and
Ryan have bowed
down to Trump.
They have mumbled occasional
words of protest, sometimes even
harsh ones, like Ryan’s use of “rac-
ist” last year. Then they have gone
back to supporting Trump.
The capitulation of McConnell
and Ryan has created an impression
— especially among many liberals
— that congressional Republicans
stand behind the president.
McConnell and Ryan, after all, are
the leaders of Congress, and they
continue to push for the legislation
Trump wants and to permit his klep-
tocratic governing.
But don’t be fooled: Republican
support for the president has started
to crack.
Below the leadership level,
Republicans are defying Trump
more often, and McConnell and
Ryan aren’t always standing in their
way. You can see this defiance in the
bipartisan Senate investigation of the
Russia scandal. You can see it in the
deal on Russian sanctions. And you
can see it in the Senate’s failure, so
far at least, to pass a health care bill.
It’s true that we still don’t know
how these stories will end. If the
Senate passes a damaging health
care bill or lets Trump halt the
Russia investigation, I will revisit my
assessment. For now, though, I think
many political observers are missing
the ways that parts of Trump’s own
party have subtly begun to revolt.
Just listen to Trump himself. “It’s
very sad that Republicans,” he wrote
in a weekend Twitter rant, “do very
little to protect their President.” In a
historical sense, he is right. Members
of Congress usually support a new
president of their own party much
more strongly than Republicans are
now.
They typically understand that
a young presidency offers the rare
opportunity for sweeping legisla-
tion — like the Reagan tax cut, the
George W. Bush tax cut, the Clinton
deficit plan and the Obama stimulus,
health bill and financial regulation.
Some intraparty tensions are
unavoidable, and defectors kill some
legislation — as happened with the
Clinton health plan and the Obama
climate plan. But partisan loyalty is
the norm.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President Donald Trump walks from the Oval Office to the South
Lawn of the White House on Monday.
Congress members tend to
echo White House talking points
fulsomely. They find the votes to
pass bills. They defend the president
against scandal. And the loyalty
doesn’t stop in the first year. During
Watergate, as the political scientist
Jonathan Bernstein has noted, most
Republicans stood by Richard Nixon
until almost the bitter end.
‘It’s very
sad that
Republicans
do very little
to protect their
President’
President Donald Trump
posted on Twitter over the weekend
Matt Glassman, another polit-
ical scientist, is one of the sharper
observers of the White House-
Congress relationship, and I asked
him to put the current situation in
context. Glassman said that many
progressives have made the mis-
take of comparing how they want
Congress to treat Trump with what
it is doing. The more relevant yard-
stick is how Congress’s treatment
compares historically.
“The current congressional GOP
seems less supportive and more con-
straining of the Potus than basically
any in history,” Glassman wrote to
me, “save the unique circumstances
of Andrew Johnson (who wasn’t
really a Republican) and John Tyler
(who bucked his party aggressively),
neither of whom were elected.”
Many of today’s Republicans
avoid going on television as Trump
surrogates. They mock him off the
record, and increasingly on the
record, too. In recent weeks, eight
senators have publicly stood in the
way of a health care bill. Republican
senators are also helping to conduct
an investigation of Trump’s cam-
paign and have backed the appoint-
ment of Robert Mueller as special
counsel.
One reason is that they don’t
fear Trump. About 90 percent of
Republican House members won a
larger vote share in their district last
year than Trump did, according to
Sarah Binder of George Washington
University. Since he took office,
Trump’s nationwide net approval
rating has fallen to minus 16 (with
only 39 percent approving) from
plus 4.
So it’s not just Republican poli-
ticians who are inching away from
Trump. Republican voters are, too.
None of this is meant to suggest
that congressional Republicans have
been profiles in courage. They hav-
en’t been. They have mostly stood
by as Trump has lied compulsively,
denigrated the rule of law and tried
to shred the modern safety net.
But they have put up just enough
resistance to keep him from doing
far more damage than he otherwise
would have.
In the months ahead, unfortu-
nately, that level of resistance is
unlikely to be sufficient. Trump has
made clear that he isn’t finished
trying to take health insurance away
from millions of people or trying to
hide the truth about his Russia ties.
“The constitutional crisis won’t be if
Trump fires Mueller,” as the ACLU’s
Kate Oh put it. “The constitutional
crisis is if Congress takes no real
action in response.”
For now, anxious optimism — or
maybe optimistic anxiety — seems
the appropriate attitude.
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.