Page 6A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
What’s in a name?
The basics of the southeast Oregon
standoff are becoming clear. A
group of outsiders descended on the
small city of Burns to stand up for
local ranchers Dwight and Steven
Hammond, who were convicted
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federal prison on Monday to complete
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fraction of those involved in the
protest then drove 30 miles south to
a federally-operated wildlife refuge
and are occupying the buildings there,
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They claimed as many as 150
people in their group, but only about
20 is occupying the refuge buildings.
Ammon Bundy, one of the group’s
leaders and son of Nevada rancher
Cliven Bundy who had his own
standoff with federal authorities
in 2014, said the group’s goal is
to “break up” the refuge land and
redistribute it to local ranchers.
Meanwhile, the Hammonds
distanced themselves from the
spectacle and reported to prison in
California as promised.
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guess. The group claims it is willing to
stay as long as it takes to accomplish
the goal. But in the meantime, we
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small group that has become a
national news story overnight — and
what we won’t call them.
TERRORIST: The goal of a
terrorist group is to promote fear,
and this group isn’t that. While they
certainly have Harney County on high
alert, including the school district
which canceled classes for the week,
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their intent and destruction.
We’d argue the Hammonds aren’t
terrorists either, though the federal
crimes they were convicted of fall
under that category in the eyes of the
law.
No doubt we are culturally quick
to dub Middle Eastern men with guns
terrorists and more likely to give
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least yet.
MILITIA: Just because a group
of individuals carries guns and is
opposed to government regulations
doesn’t make it a militia. If that was
the proof, this group would have at
least hundreds if not thousands of
supporters in southeastern Oregon.
Initially, a militia referred to a
civilian force trained to supplement
a regular army if necessary. Or it can
mean a group trained and prepared
to oppose the army. Either way, the
training and coordination needed to
be called a militia is lacking in this
case. It’s a simple and provocative
title, but not accurate, even if this is
what the group claims to be.
OCCUPIERS: $QRYHUVLPSOL¿HG
version of what this group stands for.
The Occupy Wall Street movement
of 2014 brought the term to the
mainstream, but occupying a public
place with signs and chants is
different than occupying a public
place with weapons. It’s also a clunky
word that could be associated with
any occupant, from an apartment
tenant to the passenger in a vehicle.
PROTESTERS: If a group
protests anything from an
environmental or human rights issue
to the management of federal lands,
we call them protesters. It’s simple
and makes no judgment about their
intent or purpose.
If the group makes physical
threats, whether spoken or insinuated,
toward those around them, we need to
reconsider.
The megaload protesters in
Umatilla two years ago come to mind.
Their mission was to bring attention
to tar sands drilling in Alberta,
Canada and they accomplished
this goal by standing in the path of
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equipment. A couple of the protesters
also attached themselves to the
vehicle. The action was illegal, but
the method was not threatening.
ARMED ACTIVISTS: Until
the story develops further, we’ll
stick with armed activist or a variant
thereof. The fact that they are armed
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in understanding the situation.
We will continue to evaluate our
representation of this group as the
story develops.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
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The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29
D
onald Trump in December used
some typically coarse language
to describe Hillary Clinton, who
responded by accusing Mr. Trump of
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unleashing Bill Clinton to campaign for
her. This was too ripe an opening for Mr.
Trump, who is now attacking Hillary for
acquiescing in Bill’s predations against
women.
Mr. Trump is rude and crude, but in
this case he is raising an issue that rightly
bears on the 2016 election campaign
and the prospect of a third Clinton term.
Mrs. Clinton wants to use her gender
both as a political sword and shield to
win the White House. The purpose is to
make male politicians less willing to take
her on, while reinforcing her main and
not-so-subtle campaign theme that it’s
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So she and her allies will try to spin
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correct Bernie Sanders got this treatment
after he said during a debate this autumn
that “all the shouting in the world”
wouldn’t keep guns out of the wrong
hands. Mrs. Clinton later said that “I
haven’t been shouting, but sometimes
when a woman speaks out, some people
think it’s shouting.” Against Republicans,
she’ll play the “war on women” theme
non-stop.
Yet no one in American politics better
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Clinton’s husband. For readers too young
to recall the 1990s, we aren’t merely
referring to Trumpian gibes about female
looks or “Mad Men” condescension. Mr.
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power as a workplace superior, and the
Clinton entourage worked hard to smear
and discredit his many women accusers.
Start with “bimbo eruptions,” the
phrase that Mr. Clinton’s Arkansas
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the women who had affairs with Bill.
Gennifer Flowers almost derailed
his primary campaign in 1992, until
Hillary stood by her man on CBS’s “60
Minutes” and the media portrayed Ms.
Flowers as a golddigger.
Many more would come forward,
not least Paula Jones, an Arkansas state
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policeman working for then Governor
Clinton invited her to Bill’s hotel room
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Clinton lied under oath, resulting in his
impeachment.
Then there was Monica Lewinsky,
the White House intern whose story
the Clintons want everyone to dismiss
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runaway libido. But no CEO in America
would survive in his job if he had a
publicly known affair with a subordinate,
much less a 22-year-old.
Mrs. Clinton described Ms. Lewinsky
as “a narcissistic loony toon,” according
to the personal papers of Diane Blair,
a close friend of Mrs. Clinton from
Arkansas. This September Mrs. Clinton
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assault” has “the right to be heard. You
have the right to be believed.” But when
her own access to political power was
at stake, she dismissed the women and
defended her husband.
We rehearse all this not merely
to reinforce Mr. Trump’s claims of a
Clinton double standard. The point
relates to the standards that would
prevail in another Clinton Presidency.
No wonder that Ruth Marcus, the
Washington Post columnist and no
conservative, called Bill Clinton’s record
with women a fair political issue. At the
very least if Mrs. Clinton wants everyone
to forget about Bill’s harassment of
women, she ought to stop playing the
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both.
OTHER VIEWS
Elections have consequences
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ou have to be seriously
The point, of course, was not to
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punish the rich but to raise money
the Internal Revenue Service
for progressive priorities, and while
releases a new batch of statistics.
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Well, I’m a big geek; like quite a few
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other people who work on policy
on the 1 percent correspond to about
issues, I was eagerly awaiting the
$70 billion a year in revenue. This
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happens to be in the same ballpark as
released last week.
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Paul
And what these tables show
Krugman estimates of this year’s net outlays
is that elections really do have
on Obamacare. So we’re not talking
Comment
consequences.
about something trivial.
You might think that this is
Speaking of Obamacare, that’s
obvious. But on the left, in particular, there
another thing Republicans would surely
are some people who, disappointed by the
have killed if 2012 had gone the other way.
limits of what President Barack Obama has
Instead, the program went into effect at the
accomplished, minimize the differences
beginning of 2014. And the effect on health
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care has been huge: according to estimates
president is, they assert — or at least,
from the Centers for Disease Control
whoever it is if it’s not Bernie Sanders —
and Prevention, the number of uninsured
things will remain pretty much the same,
Americans fell 17 million between 2012 and
with the wealthy continuing to dominate
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the scene. And it’s true that if you were
most likely ahead.
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So the 2012 election had major
transformation of America’s political and
consequences. America would look very
economic scene, what he’s actually achieved
different today if it had gone the other way.
can seem like a big letdown.
Now, to be fair, some widely predicted
But the truth is that Obama’s election in
consequences of Obama’s re-election —
2008 and re-election in 2012 had some real,
predicted by his opponents — didn’t happen.
TXDQWL¿DEOHFRQVHTXHQFHV:KLFKEULQJVPH Gasoline prices didn’t soar. Stocks didn’t
to those IRS tables.
plunge. The economy didn’t collapse — in
For one of the important consequences of
fact, the U.S. economy has now added more
the 2012 election was that Obama was able
than twice as many private-sector jobs under
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Obama as it did over the same period of the
on high incomes. Partly this was achieved by George W. Bush administration, and the
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unemployment rate is a full point lower than
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the rate Romney promised to achieve by the
incomes passed along with the Affordable
end of 2016.
Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.
In other words, the 2012 election didn’t
If Mitt Romney had won, we can be sure
just allow progressives to achieve some
that Republicans would have found a way to
important goals. It also gave them an
SUHYHQWWKHVHWD[KLNHV$QGZHFDQQRZVHH opportunity to show that achieving these
what happened because he didn’t. According
goals is feasible. No, asking the rich to pay
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for 99 percent of Americans barely changed
less fortunate won’t destroy the economy.
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So now we’re heading for another
1 percent rose by more than four percentage
presidential election. And once again the
SRLQWV7KHWD[ULVHZDVHYHQELJJHUIRUYHU\ stakes are high. Whoever the Republicans
high incomes: 6.5 percentage points for the
nominate will be committed to destroying
top 0.01 percent.
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These numbers aren’t enough to give us a
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IXOOSLFWXUHRIWD[HVDWWKHWRSZKLFKUHTXLUHV make the Bush cuts look puny. Whoever the
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be committed to defending the achievements
income of stockholders. But the available
of the past seven years.
numbers are consistent with Congressional
The bottom line is that presidential
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elections matter, a lot, even if the people on
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Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
rate on the 1 percent would rise roughly
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back to its pre-Reagan level. No, really: for
Paul Krugman joined The New York Times
top incomes, Obama has effectively rolled
in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page
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and continues as professor of Economics and
Reagan’s as well.
International Affairs at Princeton University.
YOUR VIEWS
In response to Ms. Sacco’s
letter on Liberalism
Carlin Sacco is a frequent contributor to
this column, and I must answer her letter of
Jan. 2. However, I feel kind of like David
Huddleston in “Blazing Saddles” who gets
up after Gabby Johnson’s speech at the town
meeting and says “Who can argue with that?”
pointing out that the speech was delivered in
“authentic frontier gibberish.”
Ms. Sacco decries liberalism and its effect
on the state of Oregon. Her complaints are
somewhat unfocused, but as a proud liberal I
will attempt to respond. First, and foremost,
I believe government should provide a safety
net for our citizens who need help. Like Ms.
Sacco, I’m concerned about the “nanny state”
that has grown up around that safety net, but
blaming all the problems on us liberals will
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Two of Ms. Sacco’s allegations must be
addressed. Obamacare (thanks for the name)
has improved health care and will only get
better as the bugs are worked out. Thanks to
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in place to discourage welfare dependency
and they have been working for a long time.
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attention to me because I am a former
government employee with a law degree,
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from angry old men on the right with care.
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as “disadvantaged.” I can think of no group
that has suffered more under the yoke of
discrimination than old white people.
Patrick J. Delaney
Hermiston
A tip of the hat to the
Umatilla City Council
Maybe the East Oregonian could give a
“Tip of the Hat” to the Umatilla City Council
in their consideration to purchase the old gas
station property across from their city hall to
build a new city park.
The city of Umatilla reportedly owns
property adjacent to the gas station and the
whole area would be a green spot in the heart
of downtown Umatilla.
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not have many downtown sites, although
the green area at Hamley’s is a pleasant
stopping place as well as the tree-shaded
space at Heritage Station. It would be a
bonus if the Umatilla City Council would
consider erecting a monument in the park
as the Umatilla Village/Old Town Site. The
movement of that town was an historic event.
Dr. Dorys C. Grover
Pendleton
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and
products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number.
The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.