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Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, February 21, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW On Presidents Day, we celebrate the good ones Presidential biographers will tell madness and blood with which he you there are flaws in all of their was forced to deal.” subjects. But at certain moments, Washington, unique in American when the chips were down — such history for winning his two terms as the nation’s birth, the Civil War, with unanimous votes by the Electoral World War II — the right leader College, was widely ridiculed and showed up to meet an enormous disliked at the end of his presidency. challenge. He faced an armed uprising in While the scourge of terrorism 1791. Some blamed his policies for economic disruptions in the nation’s still threatens America, the abiding early years. Washington was a slave enemy of a large share of Americans owner. He sided with Alexander is change — economic and cultural Hamilton vs. Thomas Jefferson, a — that threatens livelihoods and conflict that gave personal values. In the face of that, it’s In the U.S. system rise to continuing of political not always clear of government, the ripples partisanship that still that current national president is a public trouble us today. leaders have a Despite his program of substance. employee, not the imperfections, with Instead, they win personification of the the wisdom of time by channeling the a degree of anger and fear of the nation, as was the and looking backward disaffected voters. case in the European with rose-tinted But that is not Washington is leadership. And that monarchy we left glasses, now justly celebrated is what makes this a behind. for having done most dispiriting time. things right. Disappointment As the Miller Center at the with current elected leaders is University of Virginia notes, “he disappointment with our times as tolerated dissent, vicious attacks much as it is about the people in on his reputation and name, and a question. divisive press — all in the interest Many years ago, on George of freedom. There is little reason Washington’s or Abraham Lincoln’s to suggest that Washington, unlike birthday, it was traditional for so many of his successors, ever elementary schools to hold programs sought to use his office for personal honoring those hallowed presidents. empowerment or gain.” These days we have Presidents Day. The men — including Washington In many ways, we are more in need — who crafted our system of of some discussion of Washington government understood and explicitly and Lincoln than we were in the dealt with concerns that presidents 1950s. And it’s not the children who need to hear about the virtues of those could become too important. It is inevitable the top elected job in a great men. It’s the adults. Especially great nation becomes the focus for the adults who make and administer blame and credit. But in the U.S. our laws. system of government, the president We need to discuss Washington is a public employee, not the and Lincoln not because they dwarf personification of the nation, as was the presidents we have known in our lifetimes. We need to talk about them the case in the European monarchy we left behind. The presidency is because they rose to their tasks at two of the most difficult moments the important but our nation is infinitely more so. nation ever faced. Presidents Day is good time to Looking backward, the rise of celebrate the good ones, who manage Washington and Lincoln seems to govern in ways that promote inevitable. The preeminent peace and prosperity. But it’s also Washington scholar, James Thomas an opportunity to thank even the Flexner, titled his one-volume biography “The Indispensable Man.” mediocre and lackluster ones, who often sacrifice health and reputation in Oregon U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield efforts to serve the country. made a similar point about Lincoln, Finally, Presidents Day is a good whose life the senator studied in some symbol for the fact that they are only depth. “Lincoln did not feel that he small parts of who we as a nation — chose his place in history, but rather that history had chosen him,” Hatfield we give 1/365th of 2017 to honoring them, and many of the remaining days said. “Clearly no other individual to thinking little of them. This is as it could have brought so much good should be. out of the seemingly infinite seas of 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 Beltway panic, Wall Street zen T proposition, in the sense that the link he most grounded fears about a between political and economic crises Donald Trump presidency have is more uncertain than direct. The always involved incompetence rather than malevolence, the perils of financial crisis struck at a low ebb a catastrophically weak presidency in George W. Bush’s effectiveness, rather than the prospect of a near- but the Great Depression hit with a dictatorship. popular and (at that point) famously So far, many of these fears are competent Herbert Hoover at the helm. being vindicated. Trump’s policy The political turmoil of the late 1960s Ross rollouts have been botched, his Douthat coincided with low unemployment appointments mismanaged, his rates and strong GDP growth. Comment White House is a feuding mess, his Watergate was rough on the stock legislative agenda is lost in the fog. market, but the Clinton impeachment, He’s in wars with the press, the intelligence not so much, and markets mostly weathered community, the bureaucracy and the courts, the gridlock and debt-ceiling brinkmanship and he isn’t obviously winning any of them. of the Obama years. If Trump is impotent or But those of us who feared a flailing Trump if he’s impeached, there is precedent for the administration didn’t fear it for its own sake. markets simply shrugging, for the economy to We feared the second-order consequences — keep chugging right along. global instability, domestic unrest, constant However: This argument assumes that economic jitters. Trump’s level of incompetence stays within There are hints of the first in North Korea’s at least hailing distance of normal bounds missile test and various Russian maneuvers, and/or that no crisis comes unlooked-for signs of the second in the spasms of anti- that the Trump White House fumbles into Trump protest since Election Day. something much, much worse. Gridlock in But the third is nowhere to be seen. While Washington need not damage the economy, political journalists and Washington hands but a botched response to terrorism, a freak out daily over the Trump presidency, the mismanagement of the next Ebola, or a stock market keeps acting like everything is buffoonish response to financial hiccups fine, or better than fine, or even (if you will) could be a different matter. So, too, with just great again. a Watergate-level constitutional crisis, a A growing economy is compatible civilian-military conflict, and so on down a with creeping authoritarianism, of course, list of all-too-plausible Trump-era tests. as Trump’s most alarmist critics are fond It is possible we will pass four years of pointing out. But is it compatible with without such a test. (Eight is tougher, but outrageous presidential incompetence, with let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) And the a White House that can’t hit a target with a investor class’ bet, right now, is that if you Super Soaker from 6 inches away? combine the chances of avoiding a major That’s what we’ll find out. In effect, the test entirely, the chances of the Trump White Trump era is pitting the wisdom of one elite House somehow finding its footing, and the crowd against the wisdom of another — the chances that Trump semi-accidentally handles crowd of D.C. politicos against the herd of his biggest test OK, you get a probability brokers and analysts and financiers just an high enough to justify betting on continued Acela ride away. It’s the crowd of experts prosperity and growth instead of freaking out that totally failed to predict the rise of Trump about the daily White House meltdowns. against the crowd of experts that managed to Except probably it’s not really that rational miss the biggest financial meltdown since the and calculated; it’s animal spirits and all that. Great Depression. But then again, irrationality cuts both ways: The best case for the Wall Street As the economist and columnist Tyler Cowen perspective runs as follows: Most presidents likes to point out, if political observers were have less power over the economy than one really so confident in our alarm, we would all might assume from presidential campaigns be dumping our portfolios (or at least buying and voter expectations. If this is true of put options, or trying to set up a big Trump administrations whose carefully calibrated short). economic programs have all the weight of If you’re a Trump-panicked reader with a wonkery behind them, why shouldn’t it be nest egg and you haven’t, ask yourself why true of administrations that find themselves not. Because as long as you don’t, your mind unable to accomplish much of anything? If may be with the panicked political class, but what matters is the fundamentals, and his your money is with the Zen of Wall Street. White House is more likely to be balked and ■ baffled than frenetically transformative, why Ross Douthat joined The New York not just bet those fundamentals and assume Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. you’ll win? Previously, he was a senior editor at The There is historical evidence for this Atlantic. YOUR VIEWS Culture Corner V ideo essayist Evan Puschak embraces writer Robert Heinlein’s notion “specialization is for insects.” I stumbled upon Puschak’s work this past weekend while seeking online analysis of Denis Villeneuve’s masterful film “Arrival.” Puschak creates, edits and produces the weekly web series The Nerdwriter. He’s been making the series since 2011, so, sure, I’m late to the party, but one nice part about the internet is playing catch-up. Viewing Puschak’s insightful piece on “Arrival” led me to take in a dozen more of his productions. He pegs the overarching failing of 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” and examines why dragons are a central problem in the world of HBO’s Game of Thrones. But Puschak also discusses Electoral College needs overhaul science, art, and culture, from “How Nuclear Weapons Screwed Art Forgers” to “How Louis CK Tells A Joke.” Puschak also discusses politics. I suspect many East Oregonian readers will not agree with his take on President Donald Trump, but the 2016 analysis on how Trump answers a question reveals why his simple speech resonates with people as well as why we should be wary of his salesmen tactics. Politics aside, The Nerdwriter series offers intelligent, sincere commentary and critique in digestible form. Check out the series at thenerdwriter.net and www.youtube.com/user/Nerdwriter1, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Most of the video essays are less than eight minutes. Like a lot of fun things, you probably won’t stop at just one. — Phil Wright, reporter After reading Ken Parsons’ recent letter in “Your Views” (Feb. 16) it seems only fair to raise a few other points regarding the Electoral College. The argument that the Electoral College balances the rural and urban vote sounds reasonable on its face. But let’s look at the math from another angle. Parsons uses New York City as an example of the collective amount by which Clinton won the popular vote — roughly 2 million. (CNN says 2.87 million, but we won’t quibble.) Divided into the total 2010 population of New York state, those votes translate into 3 Electoral College votes. Now let’s add the populations of Wyoming, North and South Dakota, which also total about 2 million. Together those three states hold 9 Electoral College votes, so popular votes there count for three times those in NYC. It takes three votes in Brooklyn to match one vote in Cheyenne. Whether or not you care for big city folks, it’s hard to see that as fair and equal. As Americans, we have the freedom to live where we like, anywhere in the country. If you choose to move from a rural community to a large city why should your vote suddenly count for less? Conversely, why should rural red voters in blue states like Oregon watch as their votes essentially count for nothing? Twice in the last five presidential elections the candidate who received the most votes was not elected. That may be acceptable to those the system favors, but it does not represent honest democracy. There is a fairly simple remedy. It’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It has already been adopted in 10 states, from Washington to Vermont, and is currently working its way through the statehouse in Salem, as well as 17 other state legislatures. I urge all of our representatives, regardless of their political orientation, to support it. It does not do away with the Electoral College, but it guarantees that the candidate who takes the oath of office on January 20 every four years will be the one who truly reflects the will of the people. Greg Alexander Pendleton New columnists would be good people to know One of the quality tests of a columnist is whether you would like to know them personally. With that in mind, I would say you have done very well with your choices of Saturday columnists. Both Matt Wood and J.D. Smith meet this criterion. Don Reese Echo 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.
