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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 10, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, June 10, 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 EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com OUR VIEW Good signs in Umatilla, but follow through is needed Things are happening in the city get up to no good. With some work, of Umatilla. Signs of community life Umatilla can be a place that melds are bubbling up. cultures, connects rivers. It can be an economic engine with lots of As we reported this week, a Wednesday market is bringing recreational activities. It has a lot of residents to an attractive green history as a tribal gathering place, space downtown. And eight people and an old town site that had to be applied to be nominated to two open abandoned when the dams changed council positions the Columbia. — a reminder that Access to that could There is no competition is be a tourist treat, and crucial to selecting another place for reason why high-quality locals to celebrate. Umatilla cannot candidates, eliciting This city is having ideas and spurring a moment, the stars be a riverside are aligning for voter involvement. We deeply hope that Umatilla. haven and a future elections are But, as we’ve said destination. before in this space, competitive races, capitalizing on it too. And dozens of people showed up will require better just to watch the meeting. engagement from city government. It’s up to the council to Meanwhile, a group of Portland understand the difference between State students helped create a long- disagreeing and infighting. needed downtown revitalization plan, which calls for more gathering Resignations cannot be routine. Transparency, on the other hand, spaces and green spaces — places must be. where the community can Change and opportunity can congregate. Moving forward with highlight personal and political that plan, supporting local business differences, and that’s as clear as so there is money to spend on it, and then prioritizing it in the budget ever in Umatilla. When there are multiple roads to go down it’s only will be key to turning all the talk natural that different people will into action and turning architectural favor different paths. But when plans into real life. navigating the journey toward There is no reason why Umatilla improvement, councilors must cannot be a riverside haven and a destination. As Hermiston continues respect the differences of opinion. There is no need for disagreements to bust at its seams, Umatilla to rise to the level where the council businesses must be salivating at all can no longer operate as an effective the new customers living nearby. legislative body. Realtors and landowners must be In Tuesday’s showdown for the penciling out major investments final seat, we were heartened to see in a city with serious growth Lyle Smith bow out to allow Selene opportunities. And big box stores Torres-Medrano to claim it. Smith is must be looking across the river at a former councilor, and it was clear all those Washington residents who he understood the value of bringing would be excited to drive a few a recent college graduate with a minutes and not pay sales tax. fresh view to the chambers. The city of Umatilla has a lot Umatilla can, should, and must be going for it. No longer does it better. Residents are standing up to have to be just a place to just fill demand it, so its government better up the gas tank before heading on listen and adapt or prepare to be down the road, or just a place for replaced. truckers to turn in for the night or 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. YOUR VIEWS When you love an invasive plant in farm country Country must move on without Trump Here I am in the middle of farm country, chairman of the Athena Caledonian Games and everything, and I love scotch thistle. I collect the stuff ... well, dishes, papers, fabrics, priceless glassware — you know. The thistle patterns are historically rich, graceful, delicate and beautiful. The thistle’s place in history is secured because it saved a nation: The story goes that there was a Scottish army sleeping in the middle of the night and didn’t know of an impending surprise attack until an attacker backed into a thistle and set up such a ruckus that it awoke the Scottish army, who thwarted the attack and saved the nation. Mary, Queen of Scots was a seamstress and she stitched beautiful thistles into her needlework. The thistle is one of Scotland’s national emblems because it saved Scotland. Ahhhh, I could go on. But the economy that supports Athena Caledonian Games doesn’t like thistle — hates it. What can I do? With a sigh, I do cut thistles out of my yard. Yet we toast Scotland with my beautiful thistle teacups and linens. The Athena Caledonian Games will continue to showcase thistle, wear plaids, dance and pipe. I have learned to love the traditions of Scotland and beg forgiveness from my farmer friends and neighbors for holding the thistle dear. Watching Thursday’s Senate hearing with former FBI director James Comey, I can’t help but remember back to this same time of the year during the peak of the Watergate hearings and watching them in the early morning hours on the television in Senate President Jason Boe’s office immediately behind the Senate chambers, with Jason’s secretary Nancy Burke and Senate lounge attendant Lloyd Turney, among others. As I felt then (and even wrote a letter to the editor about, which ended up being published soon after), there was rapidly becoming no question the country had encountered a dishonest and dangerous president. It was truly a profoundly important and emotionally moving situation back then — just as today’s situation is now. President Trump should resign, or Congress should initiate impeachment proceedings. The country desperately needs to move on without Donald Trump’s dangerously naive, self-centered, and just plain dishonest tactics. Probably isn’t going to happen, at least immediately. Still, it absolutely needs to. Sue Friese Athena Les Ruark Arlington OTHER VIEWS It’s not the crime, it’s the culture he first important part of James sulfuric. James Hohmann and Joanie Comey’s testimony was that he Greve had a superb piece in the Daily cast some doubt on reports that 202 section of The Washington Post. there was widespread communication They compiled the lessons people in between the Russians and the Trump the Clinton administration learned campaign. That was the suspicion from the Whitewater scandal and that set off this whole chain of events applied them to the Trump White and the possibility that could have House. quickly brought about impeachment If past is prologue, this David proceedings. Brooks investigation will drag on for a while. The second important implication The Clinton people thought the Comment of the hearings is that as far as Whitewater investigation might last six we know, Donald Trump has not months, but the inquiries lasted more performed any criminal act that would merit than seven years. The Trump investigation removing him from office. will lead in directions nobody can now Sure, he cleared the room so he could lean anticipate. When the Whitewater investigation on Comey to go easy on Michael Flynn. But started, Monica Lewinsky was an unknown he didn’t order Comey to college student, and shut down the investigation nobody had any clue that as a whole or do any of the an investigation into an things (like following up Arkansas land deal would on the request) that would turn into an investigation constitute real obstruction. about sex. And sure, Trump did This investigation later fire Comey. But it’s will ruin careers far and likely that the Comey wide. Investigators go firing had little or nothing after anybody they think to do with the Flynn can yield information on investigation. the president. Before the Trump was, as always, Whitewater investigators thinking about himself. got to Clinton they took Comey had told Trump down Arkansas Gov. three times that he was not Jim Guy Tucker, Webb under investigation. Trump wanted Comey Hubbell, Susan and Jim McDougal, and many to repeat that fact publicly. When Comey others. didn’t, Trump took it as a sign that Comey This investigation will swallow up was disloyal, an unforgivable sin. So he fired day-to-day life. As Clinton alum Jennifer him, believing, insanely, that the move would Palmieri wrote in an op-ed in the USA be popular. Today network of newspapers: “No one in a All of this would constitute a significant position of authority at the White House tells scandal in a normal administration, but it you what is happening. No one knows. Your would not be grounds for impeachment. closest colleague could be under investigation The third important lesson of the hearing is and you would not know. You could be that Trump is characterologically at war with under investigation and not know. It can be the norms and practices of good government. impossible to stay focused on your job.” Comey emerged as a superb institutionalist, Everybody will be affected. Betty Currie, a man who believes we are a nation of laws. Bill Clinton’s personal secretary, finally Trump emerged as a tribalist and a clannist, refused to mention the names of young White who simply cannot understand the way House employees to the investigators because modern government works. every time she mentioned a name, the kid Trump is also plagued with a self- would get a subpoena, which meant thousands destructive form of selfishness. He is of dollars of ruinous legal fees. consumed by a hunger for affirmation, but, If anything, the Trump investigation demented by his own obsessions, he can’t will probably be more devastating than the think more than one step ahead. Whitewater scandals. The Clinton team was In search of praise he is continually a few shady characters surrounded by a large doing things that will end up bringing him group of super-competent straight arrows. condemnation. He lies to people who have the The Trump administration is shady characters power to publicly devastate him. He betrays through and through. Clinton himself was people who have the power to damage him. a savvy operator. Trump is a rage-prone Trump is most dangerous to the people who obsessive who will be consumed by this. are closest to him and are in the best position The good news is the civic institutions are to take their revenge. weathering the storm. The Senate Intelligence The upshot is the Trump administration Committee put on a very good hearing. The will probably not be brought down by outside FBI is maintaining its integrity. This has, by forces. It will be incapacitated from within, and large, been a golden age for the U.S. press by the bile, rage and back-stabbing that are corps. The bad news is that these institutions at record levels in the White House staff, by had better be. The Trump death march will be the dueling betrayals of the intimates Trump slow, grinding and ugly. abuses so wretchedly. ■ Although there may be no serious collusion David Brooks became a New York Times with the Russians, there is now certain to be a Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He wide-ranging independent investigation into has been a senior editor at The Weekly all things Trump. Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek These investigations will take a White and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a House that is already acidic and turn it commentator on PBS. T It would constitute a significant scandal in a normal administration, but not grounds for impeachment.
