Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 21, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, June 21, 2017 OTHER VIEWS 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 All kinds of visitors descending on Eastern Oregon Millions of crickets are eating their The paying festivalgoers, however, we know how to deal with. Pendleton way through Arlington. Pyrosomes Bike Week is building off a steady are filling the waters off the Oregon stream of increasing participation, coast in incalculable numbers. Rainbow-clad hippies are descending Whisky Fest is coming back for year two with a larger-drawing band, the on Seneca. Perhaps even aliens will Round-Up keeps on chugging along. visit from outer space on Saturday, The eclipse could be a godsend, if the 70th anniversary of Kenneth the weather is as good as expected Arnold’s unexplainable sighting. and people are well behaved. Oregon — especially Eastern Hundreds of thousands Oregon — sure of people will likely feels like a crowded Our advice: drive hundreds of miles destination these days. the prime viewing Lots of events, both Make the into zone, which thankfully planned and thrust upon us, are bringing hordes best of the graces Eastern Oregon a thin stripe of of organisms to our hordes that with totality. Gas stations, usually quiet corner of the planet. are headed restaurants and hotels to make a windfall Summer officially our way. It’s stand starts today and that on the visitors, who means tourist season bring their own easier with may is hitting top gear. In costs with them, too. people than Law enforcement and Pendleton, prepare for big crowds for Bike services will the crickets. emergency Week and Pendleton be stretched thin. Whisky Music Fest We’re not used to as well as a little thing called the crowds out here, but our advice is to make the best of what is coming Round-Up when September comes our way. Crickets might have little around. In addition, the total solar to offer, but people have pockets. eclipse in August is likely to fill We can empty those pockets here, campgrounds and hotel rooms and enriching the local economy by being roads all across the region. Eastern Oregon will get busy, good hosts and businesspeople — giving us opportunities to prosper selling some goods and filling up but also to cause problems. The the gas tanks and bellies of passing Mormon crickets are causing havoc travelers. and crop devastation in northwest We can show off the wonderful Morrow County. The pyrosomes are place we call home, while making confusing scientists. The Rainbow sure our visitors treat it with the Family is putting the environment proper respect. We don’t need to at risk by gathering in numbers too show mercy to cannibalistic crickets, large for the forest to handle. The but for the rest we should strive for flying objects overhead remain old fashioned hospitality that can unidentified. benefit hosts and visitors alike. 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 Kitzhaber: What could have been The Eugene Register-Guard L ast week’s terse announcement by the U.S. attorney’s office in Portland that no criminal charges would be filed against former Gov. John Kitzhaber or his girlfriend, Cylvia Hayes, is the coda to one of the most traumatic episodes in Oregon political history. Kitzhaber’s resignation, just five weeks after being inaugurated to an unprecedented fourth term, denied him the place he might have claimed in that history. It also cut the trauma short, sparing the state what could have become the protracted ordeal of being led for years by a governor who was under criminal investigation. If Kitzhaber could have avoided the allegations of influence peddling that forced him from office, he’d now be closing out the last full-length legislative session of his career with an eye toward leaving a legacy that would put him in the ranks of former Gov. Tom McCall. Unencumbered by re-election concerns and with the benefit of long experience in Salem, Kitzhaber might have been the one to forge a bipartisan consensus around the twin goals of bringing state spending under control and providing new tax revenue to restore Oregon’s struggling education system. But such a success could not have come from a governor who was the target of a federal criminal investigation. Though the allegations are fading from memory, they were serious and growing more numerous by the day. Kitzhaber’s personal finances were tightly entangled with those of Hayes, who kept a desk in the governor’s office and presented herself as Oregon’s first lady. Hayes received more than $200,000 in consulting contracts because of her political connections, and failed to report some of the income on federal tax forms. Hayes also directed state agencies to implement policies advocated by organizations that had paid for her work. But Kitzhaber could have held on — and a more stubborn, or less realistic, governor might have. The Legislature has no process for impeachment, even if grounds exist. The only way to remove Oregon’s governor is through a recall election, a time-consuming and distracting process better designed for delivering a political verdict than a judgment of guilt or innocence. If there were no recall or if Kitzhaber survived a recall vote, Oregon would have spent the last 28 months in a state of political paralysis. The 2016 elections for legislative and statewide offices would have been all about Kitzhaber. The U.S. attorney’s office undoubtedly recognizes that its investigation could have consigned Oregon government to a protracted period of unproductive churn. But the length of the investigation — in which the FBI, the IRS and the U.S. Department of Justice also took part — is evidence of its complexity. The investigation was halfway through when the U.S. Supreme Court decided, in a case involving a former Virginia governor and his wife, that public officials can’t be convicted of corruption without solid proof of an exchange of goods for services. Even with such a high standard in place, the Kitzhaber-Hayes investigation continued for a year. A spokesman for Kitzhaber and Hayes calls this “exoneration,” and they are entitled to make that claim. But they can’t say they were vindicated. There’s a difference between being cleared of wrongdoing and being found to have been in the right all along. A combination of hubris and recklessness brought Kitzhaber down, and the U.S. attorney’s decision doesn’t change that. There is tragedy, for Kitzhaber and for Oregon, in such a fall. But the worst possible outcome — a legal and ethical cloud over most of Kitzhaber’s fourth term — was avoided. Let’s not get carried away fight back. You could spur even him I was the op-ed editor at The Wall to do something that had the whiff of Street Journal at the peak of the obstruction. Whitewater scandal. We ran a series There’s just something worrisome of investigative pieces “raising serious every time we find ourselves replacing questions” (as we say in the scandal politics of democracy with the business) about the nefarious things politics of scandal. In democracy, the the Clintons were thought to have done issues count, and you try to win by back in Arkansas. persuasion. You recognize that your Now I confess I couldn’t follow all David the actual allegations made in those Brooks opponents are legitimate, that they will always be there and that some form of essays. They were six jungles deep Comment compromise is inevitable. in the weeds. But I do remember the In the politics of scandal, at least intense atmosphere that the scandal created. A series of bombshell revelations came since Watergate, you don’t have to engage in out in the media, which seemed monumental at persuasion or even talk about issues. Political victories are won when the time. A special prosecutor you destroy your political was appointed and opponents by catching indictments were expected. them in some wrongdoing. Speculation became the You get seduced by the national sport. delightful possibility that In retrospect Whitewater your opponent will be seems overblown. And eliminated. Politics is simply yet it has to be confessed about moral superiority and that, at least so far, the personal destruction. Whitewater scandal was far The politics of scandal is more substantive than the delightful for cable news. It’s Russia-collusion scandal hard to build ratings arguing now gripping Washington. about health insurance There may be a giant legislation. But it’s easy to revelation still to come. But build ratings if you are a as the Trump-Russia story glorified Court TV, if each has evolved, it is striking whiff of scandal smoke how little evidence there generates hours of “Breaking News” intensity is that any underlying crime occurred — that and a deluge of speculation from good-looking there was any actual collusion between the former prosecutors. Donald Trump campaign and the Russians. The politics is great for those forces Everything seems to be leaking out of this administration, but so far the leaks about actual responsible for the lawyerization of American life. It takes power out of the hands of voters collusion are meager. and elected officials and puts power in the There were some meetings between Trump officials and some Russians, but so far no more hands of prosecutors and defense attorneys. The politics of scandal drives a wedge than you’d expect from a campaign that was through society. Political elites get swept up in publicly and proudly pro-Putin. And so far the scandals. Most voters don’t really care. nothing we know of these meetings proves or Donald Trump rose peddling the politics even indicates collusion. of scandal — oblivious to policy, spreading I’m not saying there shouldn’t be an investigation into potential Russia-Trump links. insane allegations about birth certificates and other things — so maybe it’s just that he gets Russia’s attack on American democracy was swallowed by it. But frankly, on my list of truly heinous, and if the Trump people were reasons Trump is unfit for the presidency, the involved, that would be treason. I’m saying first, let’s not get ahead of ourselves and assume Russia-collusion story ranks number 971, well below, for example, the perfectly legal ways he that this link exists. kowtows to thugs and undermines the norms of Second, there is something disturbingly democratic behavior. meta about this whole affair. This is, as Yuval The people who hype the politics of Levin put it, an investigation about itself. scandal don’t make U.S. government purer. Trump skeptics within the administration laid They deserve some of the blame for an a legal minefield all around the president, and administration and government too distracted then Trump — being Trump — stomped all to do its job, for a political culture that is over it, blowing himself up six ways from both shallower and nastier, and for fostering Sunday. a process that looks like an elite game of Now of course Trump shouldn’t have entrapment. tweeted about Oval Office tape recordings. Of Things are so bad that I’m going to have course he shouldn’t have fired James Comey. to give Trump the last word. On June 15 he But even if you took a paragon of modern tweeted, “They made up a phony collusion with presidents — a contemporary Abraham the Russians story, found zero proof, so now Lincoln — and you directed a democratically they go for obstruction of justice on the phony unsupervised, infinitely financed team of story.” Unless there is some new revelation, that prosecutors at him and gave them power to may turn out to be pretty accurate commentary. subpoena his staff and look under any related ■ or unrelated rock in an attempt to bring him David Brooks became a New York Times down, there’s a pretty good chance you could Op-Ed columnist in 2003. spur even this modern paragon to want to As the Trump- Russia story has evolved, it is striking how little evidence there is that any underlying crime occurred. YOUR VIEWS Pendleton development should look for return on investment Looks like the Pendleton Development Commission has done it again — backed another loser. The closure of the Pendleton Coffee Bean and Bistro is indicative of a problem all too common at city hall: public servants pretending to be business smart. With the majority having no experience in the private sector, they continue trying to create supply where there is no demand. Perhaps an executive or associate director with practical experience as a successful business owner would be more appropriate to administer the PDC. Pipe dreams are great, but ignoring basic economic principles does nothing to improve the economic health of our community. It’s time for a transparent analysis program that rates the effectiveness of the entire PDC program at increasing the tax base of the Urban Renewal District properties for which it was intended verses the amount spent. Are we getting our money’s worth? It’s doubtful that our children or even our children’s children will ever see a return on our investment in a project like the Rivoli Theater restoration, which is expected to cost between $3-5 million and never turn a profit once completed. The time has come to hold the PDC accountable and put an end to accepting an explanation from the administrator that the program has been very successful despite the closing of more downtown businesses in supposedly good economic times. Unlike the drone program, which is year-round and shows continued success, the feeble attempt to attract core businesses to the downtown area with Christmas tree lights and those ridiculous speed bumps only tend to attract duplicate businesses that must cannibalize customers from each other in an attempt to succeed. With auditoriums at BMCC, PHS and the Vert all needing funds for maintenance, I just don’t see projects like the Rivoli Theater as a viable economic force in a healthy downtown economy. The Pendleton Foundation Trust would better serve the community by providing bus stops and Roundup for public works rather than summer Christmas tree lights. Rick Rohde 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.