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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.