Page 6A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Advocating
within the limits
Ethics accusation against Ammon Bundy’s
lawyers should prompt a look at the rules
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Marquis is a fascinating skirmish
in a long-running battle within
the legal profession over the
proper boundaries between
acceptable advocacy for clients and
unacceptable efforts
to manipulate public
opinion and trial
outcomes.
It is Marquis’
opinion that attorneys
for Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge
militant Ammon
Bundy are improperly
seeking to prejudice
future jurors in a
pending federal
prosecution.
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perception that all lawyers do
whatever it takes to win, the truth
is that a majority of practicing
attorneys are rather restrained in
pushing ethical boundaries. Aside
from personal integrity, most
recognize there can be a steep
professional price for being viewed
by colleagues, judges and potential
clients as unethical.
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like the Bundy defense can
entice lawyers to push the limits.
Television viewers are being
reminded of some of these tactics
right now in the program “The
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and the 1994-95 trial on which
it is based are something of a
master class in using news and
entertainment media to manipulate
public attitudes. Even before the
2-FDVHFHOHEULW\ODZ\HUVOLNH
Gerry Spence were teaching courses
on how to stack the
deck for clients long
before cases arrive in
the courtroom.
Beyond aggressively
working on behalf of
clients, press exposure
in the course of
major cases can be
a career-maker for
attorneys. Particularly
in a profession that
only in the past couple
decades has begun
doing much paid advertising, the
free publicity obtained by holding
news conferences and sending out
press releases is the gold standard of
self-aggrandizement.
The lawyer who Bundy’s lawyers
have hired to defend them on the
ethics complaint makes valid points.
Oregon’s rules set “a much higher
bar than most other states before
pretrial publicity is considered a
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prevail.
It’s time for Oregon to take a
harder look at this matter. It is easy
to imagine lawyers increasingly
testing the limits — for their clients’
sakes, and for their own.
High-proile
cases like the
Bundy defense
can entice
lawyers to
push the limits.
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.
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is a healthier place
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a bill is currently underway in the
Oregon legislature that can establish a
cleaner, healthier way for our state to
Oregonians are often surprised to
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know our state still gets one-third of
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our electricity from coal. Using coal to
off of dirty coal energy by 2030 and
generate our electricity contributes to
increased rates of cardiac disease, stroke, increase our use of clean, renewable
energy to 50%. This legislation was
asthma, and neural and pulmonary
proposed by a broad group comprised
developmental disorders in children.
of clean energy advocates, ratepayer
As long as coal power plants continue
advocates, environmentalists and electric
to generate electricity and generate
utilities.
pollution, Oregonians will continue
Going coal free, combined with our
to feel the health impacts of climate
existing hydropower, means Oregon
change, like more visits to emergency
will run on more than 80 percent
rooms during heatwaves and more
clean energy with no health-harming
asthma attacks.
&OLPDWHFKDQJHLVKHUHDQGKDSSHQLQJ emissions. The carbon reductions from
going coal free are real, measurable
in Oregon. Our state experienced one of
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seasons in its history; drought-ridden
would cut the carbon footprint of our
Eastern Oregon was particularly
state’s two biggest utilities in half — the
impacted. We are seeing higher pollen
equivalent of taking 6.4 million cars off
counts and increased ozone levels, all
the road.
of which make life for people with lung
We know that Oregon has a unique
disease and allergies unbearable and
opportunity to show the world how the
dangerous.
transition to renewables is good for
Low-income Oregonians are among
public health. We have the opportunity
the most vulnerable to pollution; those
to lead and join others in a growing
with an annual income of less than
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$15,000 have the highest percentage
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have aggressive standards for renewable
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energy. Many countries around the world
Americans and Native Americans have
are also making this shift. Iceland and
higher rates of asthma in Oregon than
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other racial or ethnic groups.
their electricity from renewables. If it’s
Healthy air is critical to the health
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of our families and our communities.
Oregon’s adult asthma rate is higher than more people than Oregon, to make the
switch we know it’s possible for us.
the national average. Healthy air is not
Transitioning to renewable energy is
only a priority for those with asthma, but
the right thing to do, and urgently needed
also for our youth and our elderly.
to protect the health of our communities
New research highlights the link
— particularly our children, our elderly
between climate change and public
and others more vulnerable to the
health, making climate change an
climate impacts because of existing
urgent priority for the American Lung
health conditions. We’re bearing witness
Association in Oregon. This past
to the growing public health challenges
spring, the White House issued its latest
around Oregon. Together we can
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the most comprehensive and extensively support Oregon’s transition to a clean
energy and protect our families and our
reviewed analysis of climate change
communities in the place we love to call
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dedicated an entire chapter to identifying home.
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the devastating health consequences
Carrie Nyssen is the vice president
linked to uncontrolled climate pollution.
of advocacy and air quality for the
One of the worst contributors to climate
American Lung Association in Oregon.
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By CARRIE NYSSEN
American Lung Association
OTHER VIEWS
From Obama to Trump
The spectacle of the Republican
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Party’s Trumpian meltdown has
launching wars without congressional
inspired a mix of glee and fear among
approval, claiming the power to
liberals — glee over their rivals’ self-
assassinate U.S. citizens, and using
immolation, and fear that what arises
every available end-around to make
from the destruction will be worse.
domestic policy without any support
What it hasn’t inspired is much
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in the way of self-examination, or a
In the process, he’s cut the legs
recognition of the way that Obama-era
from
under principled liberal critiques
Ross
trends in liberal politics have helped
Douthat of executive power, and weakened
feed the Trump phenomenon.
the American left’s role as a bulwark
Comment
Such a recognition wouldn’t require
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letting the Republican Party off the
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would be no Trumpism if George W. Bush’s
and outrageous promises make George W.
presidency hadn’t cratered, no Trumpism if
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the party hadn’t alternated between stoking
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and ignoring working-class grievances, no
a constituency that once swung between the
Trump as front-runner if
parties, but that the Obama
the party leadership and his
House has spent the last
He’s proving, White
rivals had committed fully to
eight years slowly writing off.
stopping him before now.
in his bullying, Trump’s strongest supporters
But Trumpism is also a
aren’t archconservatives;
overpromising they’re white working-class
creature of the late Obama
era, irrupting after eight years
especially in the
style, that voters voters,
when a charismatic liberal
Rust Belt and coal country,
president has dominated the
are increasingly who traditionally leaned
cultural landscape and set the
habituated to the 'HPRFUDWLFDQGVWLOOIDYRUD
agenda for national debates.
strong welfare state.
President Barack Obama
These voters had been
idea of an ever drifting
didn’t give us Trump in any
away from the
more imperial 'HPRFUDWLF3DUW\VLQFHWKH
kind of Machiavellian or
deliberate fashion. But it isn’t
1970s, but Obama has made
presidency.
an accident that this is the way
moves that effectively slam
the Obama era ends — with
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a reality TV demagogue leading a populist,
policies, his immigration gambits, his gun
nationalist revolt.
control push, his shift to offense on same-sex
First, the reality TV element in Trump’s
marriage and abortion. It was possible to
campaign is a kind of fun-house-mirror
be a culturally conservative skeptic of mass
version of the celebrity-saturated Obama
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effort in 2008. Presidential politics has long
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had an escalating celebrity component,
Of course this process has been a two-way
a cultish side that’s grown ever-more-
street, as bigotry inclined some of these voters
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against Obama from the start, or encouraged
campaign raised the bar. The quasi-religious
them to think the worst of him eventually.
imagery and rhetoric, the Great Man
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iconography and pillared sets, the Oprah
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the
endorsement and Will.i.am music video and
Obama White House’s decision that a more
the Hollywood stars pledging allegiance — it
ethnically diverse and thoroughgoingly liberal
was presidential politics as one part Aaron
coalition held more promise than continued
Sorkin-scripted liturgy, one part prestige
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movie’s Oscar campaign.
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And it worked. But because it worked,
statehouses might be forgiven for doubting
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the decision.)
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But liberalism still needs to reckon with
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the consequences. As in Europe, when the left
celebrity factor as Obama’s ’08 run, but with
gives up on nationalism and lets part of its
his campaign’s high-middlebrow pretensions
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stripped away. If Obama proved that you can
is a hard-pressed constituency unmoored
run a presidential campaign as an aspirational
from either party, and nursing well-grounded
cult of personality, in which a Sarah
feelings of betrayal.
Silverman endorsement counts for as much as
Hence Marine Le Pen and the nationalist
a governor or congressman’s support, Trump
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is proving that you don’t need Silverman to
Trump.
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He is the Republican Party’s monster,
it up.
yes. But what he represents is also part of the
He’s also proving, in his bullying,
Obama legacy — a nemesis for liberal follies
overpromising style, that voters are
as well as conservative corruptions, and a
increasingly habituated to the idea of an
threat to both traditions for many years to
ever more imperial presidency — which
come.
is also a trend that Obama’s choices have
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accelerated. Having once campaigned against
Ross Douthat joined The New York Times
his predecessor’s power grabs, the current
as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. His
president has expanded executive authority
column appears every Sunday.
YOUR VIEWS
States should be allowed to
purchase federal land
It seems fairly obvious that local
governments would better manage forest
land within their jurisdictions than the federal
government, but some activist organizations
are still pushing for federal control.
In Oregon, the federal government
controls more than 53 percent of the land
through a confusing patchwork of agencies
like the National Park Service, the Fish and
Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land
Management. Much of the land is designated
as part of a national park, and, as such, most
industrial activities are banned. Opening up
a small portion of this land for logging and
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National Forest Management Act of 2015,
would help replace some of the 1,200 jobs
lost over the past 25 years to mill closures.
Yet, for some reason, Trout Unlimited is
voicing opposition to this common-sense
bill that would allow states to purchase
back just a small percentage of national
forest land from the federal government.
Trout Unlimited claims to be a conservation
organization for anglers, but its national
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taken tens of millions of dollars from out-of-
state environmental interests, according to
tax records. These radical environmentalists
have launched concerted attacks on mines
and logging operations in other states, and
now it appears they are trying to do the same
in Oregon — without regard for the local
economic damage.
Will Coggin, research director
Environmental Policy Alliance
Washington, D.C.
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.