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.