OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, 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
What started out as a bomb scare that closed downtown Seaside on
Broadway between Holladay Drive an Edgewood Street ended up being an
anti-climactic accident.
At 11:30 a.m. Saturday, a van fire was reported on Broadway Bridge near
the Bridge Tender Tavern in Seaside.
Shortly after firefighters arrived, they began evacuating nearby buildings
and businesses after observing what looked like a small pipe bomb.
According to Seaside Police Chief Bob Gross, firefighters were dis-
patched to the van and on arrival reported hearing a “whooshing” sound
coming from the vehicle.
“Because of the smoke and sound, we suspected a bomb and called the
Oregon State Police bomb squad,” said Gross.
A member of the bomb squad, wearing a blast suit for safety, inspected
the vehicle twice before an all-clear was issued.
“It appears to just be a battery that overheated and exploded,” said Detec-
tive Karl Farber, of Pendleton, of the OSP bomb squad.
For 100 years, Astoria has been buying electricity from Pacific
Power. If all goes as city leaders hope, some energy may be flow-
ing in the opposite direction soon, as Astoria prepares to get into
the power business.
Like Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold, spinning tur-
bines could turn wind and rain — ingredients Astoria has in
abundance — into cash for city coffers. Unlike the fairytale char-
acter, Astoria is looking to science instead of alchemy to effect the
transformation.
50 years ago — 1967
The Daily Astorian/File
Hard aground this morning on the outer end of Clatsop Spit was
the Greek freighter Captailannes S., which went ashore about
8:30 p.m. Sunday, battered by 15-foot waves. The Coast Guard he-
licopter is putting Capt. John Markakis and other officers back on
board, reversing the process used in darkness Sunday night to
rescue the 20 men and two women.
Wind gusts up to 54 mph shook the U.S. Weather Bureau’s Clatsop air-
port station just before noon Friday as a cold front swept through the area.
A warm front ahead of it moved through early this morning, causing high
winds that continued all morning.
Coast Guard helicopters lifted all the crew off a Greek freighter
aground on Clatsop Spit Sunday night as 16-foot waves pounded
the craft. Twenty men and two women rode ashore in the copters.
The 384-foot Captaliannes S., inbound with 3,000 tons of Nor-
wegian fish meal, was knocked out of the main channel by a large
wave between 7 and 8 p.m. It went aground on the outer end of
Clatsop Spit.
It was one of the worst marine disasters at the river entrance
in several years.
As the small Greek freighter crashed on the sands where many
ships’ bones lie buried, the crew was able to get off a brief radio
appeal for help and to send up flares.
Whether mail call or breakfast was the high point climaxing a long eve-
ning was a tossup as a weary, relieved and happy-under-the-circumstances
Greek crew spent most of the morning drinking coffee and discussing five
hours of harrowing experience in the storm-tossed Columbia River entrance.
Mail was brought from Portland by the ship’s agent.
Attempts to pull the grounded Greek freighter Captaliannes
S. from its position on the outside edge of Clatsop Spit were to be
made again on Tuesday evening high tide after attempts by the
tug Salvage Chief failed on two earlier high tides.
For the first time since the Greek ship Captaliannes S. went aground on
Clatsop Spit Sunday night, members of its crew staying at the John Jacob
Astor Hotel had smiles on their faces when they came downstairs for break-
fast at 9 a.m. Thursday.
The smiles came from their feeling now that citizens of Astoria were
helping them. The crew expressed thanks to the city for helping them obtain
things they need.
75 years ago — 1942
ILWACO, Wash. — Bill O’Meara, electrician’s mate third
class, who has been spending a 20-day furlough at his home here,
was on duty on the USS Astoria when she was sunk by the Japs in
Tulagi harbor, Solomon Islands, on August 7.
Leaving Pearl Harbor shortly before Dec. 7, the Astoria
steamed to southern seas water. O’Meara states the ship had
withstood an almost continuous onslaught of major engagements
with the Japs without a scar, and was then assigned in task force
taking the U.S. Marines to Guadalcanal, when the fatal attack
came.
Last general standing guard
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times News Service
A
nd then there was one.
In March, I wrote a
column in the form of a
memo to Secretary
of Defense James
Mattis, National
Security Adviser
H.R. McMaster,
then-Secretary of
Homeland Security
John Kelly,
CIA Director Mike Pompeo and
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
It began: “Dear Sirs, I am
writing you today as the five adults
with the most integrity in the Trump
administration. Mattis, McMaster
and Kelly, you all served our nation
as generals in battle. Pompeo, you
graduated first in your class at West
Point. … Tillerson, you ran one
of America’s largest companies. I
am writing you directly because I
believe you are the last ‘few good
men’ who can stand up and reverse
the moral rot that has infected the
Trump administration from the
top.”
Well, so much for that.
McMaster doesn’t seem to have
built much of a relationship with
Trump, not one that can constrain
him. Tillerson blew himself up by
reportedly calling the president
a “(bleeping) moron” and then
starring in a hostage video in which
he sang the president’s praises and
assured us that Trump was actually
“smart.”
After Trump tweeted that
Tillerson was wasting his time
negotiating with North Korea,
Tillerson had to publicly assure us
that he had not been “castrated” by
Trump — which meant that he had.
On Thursday, Pompeo showed
how much he has sold his soul.
In an answer to a question,
Pompeo told a conference held
by the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, a conservative think
tank, that “the intelligence commu-
nity’s assessment is that the Russian
meddling that took place did not
affect the outcome of the election.”
That was a baldfaced lie.
The CIA, FBI and NSA issued a
report in January concluding that
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin,
personally “ordered an influence
campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S.
presidential election,” designed to
denigrate Hillary Clinton and aid
Trump. At the same time, these
agencies declared, “We did not
make an assessment of the impact
that Russian activities had on the
outcome of the 2016 election,”
which was outside their writ and
expertise.
Pompeo just made that up, no
doubt to please Trump.
Finally, sadly, Kelly squandered
his moral authority by starring
in his own White House podium
hostage video. It began well. Kelly
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, right, speaks during a meeting with Israe-
li Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, at the Pentagon this month.
Trump needs to know that
it is now your way or the
highway — not his. That is how
you talk to a bully. It’s the only
language he understands.
spoke eloquently and with great
dignity about the pain of losing a
son in battle, as he and his wife did,
and about certain bedrock values
that our society has lost in how we
treat one another. He even seemed
to explain how the president’s
phone call to the widow of a Green
Beret killed in Niger got garbled.
If only he had stopped there.
But instead, he began to talk like
Trump, gratuitously smearing a
black congresswoman who was
a friend of the Green Beret’s
bereaved family — with provably
false charges. It was tragic. In an
instant, he went from Kelly to
Kellyanne Conway, just another
Trump apologist.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders must
have known that Kelly had lost his
moral authority, because, the next
day, when reporters challenged
Kelly’s comments about the
congresswoman, the White House
spokeswoman tried to shut them
up by holding up Kelly’s formal
uniform, saying, “If you want to
get into a debate with a four-star
Marine general, I think that’s some-
thing highly inappropriate.” Sorry,
Sarah, when a general lies, he loses
his moral and formal credibility.
That leaves Mattis as the last
man standing — the only one who
has not been infected by Trump’s
metastasizing ethical cancer, the
only one who has not visibly lied
on Trump’s behalf, and who can
still put some fear into Trump.
Well, Mattis, here’s some free
advice to the last man standing:
Don’t just stand there. If you just
stand there, you’ll be next. Because
Trump and Sanders will be looking
to enlist your old uniform next in
their defense — that is, if Trump
doesn’t throw you under the bus
first to escape responsibility for the
bungled operation in Niger.
Secretary Mattis, we don’t need
any more diagnosis of the problem.
We need action. And I am not
talking about a coup. I mean you
need to lead McMaster, Tillerson
and Kelly (Pompeo is a lost cause)
in telling Trump that if he does not
change his ways, you will all quit,
en masse.
Trump needs to know that it
is now your way or the highway
— not his. That is how you talk to
a bully. It’s the only language he
understands.
Tell him: No more ridiculous
tweeting attacks on people every
morning; no more telling senators
who forge bipartisan compromises
on immigration or health care that
he’s with them one day and against
them the next; no more casual
lying; no more feeding the base
white supremacist “red meat” — no
more distracting us from the real
work of forging compromises for
the American people and no more
eroding the American creed.
Led by you and you only, Mattis,
your little squadron with Tillerson,
Kelly and McMaster still has
power. And if you can’t together
force Trump onto an agenda of
national healing and progress, then
you should together tell him that
he can govern with his kids and
Sanders — because you took an
oath to defend the Constitution, not
to wipe up Trump’s daily filth with
the uniform three of you wore so
honorably.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 439 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515.
Phone: 202- 225-0855. Fax 202-225-
9497. District office: 12725 SW Mil-
likan 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.