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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Friday, November 9, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor WYATT HAUPT JR. News Editor Founded October 16, 1875 Tip of the hat, kick in the pants A tip of the hat to all the winners in Tuesday’s election. A tip of the hat to the losers, too. From the big stages of D.C. and Salem to the smallest city hall, we believe it’s important for representatives to earn their positions of power. And the big races with millions of dollars spent on campaigns are one thing. The local races are another. It’s not easy to do a job interview in front of all your friends and neighbors, let alone the strangers, and ask for them to hire you to public service. It’s doubly difficult when asking people to choose you over somebody who is already in the job. But we did see local candidates stepping up and doing just that, and democracy is stronger for it. There are some places where nobody filed — we’re looking at you, Helix — but even in tiny Ukiah and Echo people were willing to put their names on the ballot. Now that the election is past, we offer a thanks to everyone who signed up, and a good luck to everyone who won. A tip of the hat to the Pendleton City Council for not giving the rubber stamp to the latest airport hotel proposal. City manager Robb Corbett has been in negotiations with a subsidiary of Makad Corp. to bring a hotel to town. Rather than setting a price and letting the developer decide whether to go forward, Corbett has been set on striking a deal in which the city partners with Makad and gets its payment based on the hotel’s success. It seems that’s the only way Makad is interested in working. The city council put the brakes on the plan at Tuesday’s meeting. There are some obvious problems with the arrangement, including the fact that Makad already has one unrealized development — a data center — near the airport. It’s not a promising sign, especially when paired with the company’s other local flops at the Port of Morrow. But equally concerning is that this deal is being pitched as a stream of income for the city without a full reckoning with the potential AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer Republican gubernatorial candidate Knute Buehler gives a concession speech to supporters in Portland on Tuesday. consequences. While 75 extra rooms at the airport would provide an easy-access home base for specialists at the burgeoning Pendleton UAS Range, it would also come at the expense of other hotels in town. The city’s vested interest in filling the hotel would take a toll. The city council, for its members’ variety of reasons, was wise to slow down the deal. We hope they address not just the potential cash gains of this path, but also the effect on other private businesses and who they’re working with. If a hotel at the airport is such an important asset for the city, we’d rather see a developer build one the old- fashioned way — as a private business. A tip of the hat to everyone who has already done the unpleasant but important task of getting their flu shot. It’s an ugly disease that killed more than 80,000 Americans last year. It disproportionately affects the very young and very old, but those in the middle carry it around. It’s easy to come up with an excuse not to — no time, don’t like the sting, you never get sick anyway — but your vaccination is for everyone around you, too. It’s next in line after voting and jury duty as a civic responsibility. So plan a time and go to your local hospital or pharmacy and get your shot. It just takes a few minutes, but does a lot of good. OTHER VIEWS The midterm results are a warning to the Democrats F YOUR VIEWS Respectability lacking in president The president’s performance Wednesday, at his news conference, was just downright disgraceful. The guy has an anger control problem; that’s fairly obvious. But more than that, he’s truly a behavioral mess. And absolutely dangerously so, if left to be — especially as president. When, for God’s sake, are we going to recognize this and summon up the courage to do what’s needed, congressionally, to restore some level of respectability to the office he’s so blatantly flat out trashing? I sure as heck hope it occurs before there’s nothing left worth restoring at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — or, more importantly, nothing left of our democracy. ‘Gosnell’ an important story I am writing this letter to commend Destiny Theaters of Hermiston for not only bringing the movie “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” to our local theater, but also for extending the showing of this thought-provoking movie for an additional week. This is not an easy movie to watch, but an important story for every mature American to see and hear. Although the story deals with very graphic and horrific events, the directors were able to convey the meaning without displaying a high level of gore. I would encourage everyone in the Hermiston area to take advantage of the opportunity to see this movie and use it as a springboard to motivate us as a society to help those in most need of our protection. Les Ruark Arlington Kristi Smalley Hermiston CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES U.S. PRESIDENT Donald Trump The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414 www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ U.S. SENATORS Ron Wyden 221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg. Washington, DC 20510 202-224-5244 La Grande office: 541-962-7691 Jeff Merkley 313 Hart Senate Office Building Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Washington, DC 20510 202-224-3753 Pendleton office: 541-278-1129 U.S. REPRESENTATIVE Greg Walden 185 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 202-225-6730 La Grande office: 541-624-2400 GOVERNOR Kate Brown 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, OR 97301-4047 503-378-4582 or months we’ve heard from nomination to the Supreme Court sundry media apocalypticians the decisive political test of the year. that this year’s midterms It didn’t convert when it turned his were the last exit off the road to initial confirmation hearing into a autocracy. On Tuesday, the American circus. It didn’t convert when media people delivered a less dramatic liberals repeatedly violated ordinary journalistic standards by reporting the verdict about the significance of the uncorroborated accusations against occasion. Brett Kavanaugh that followed Christine In a word: meh. Stephens Blasey Ford’s. Are you interested in seeing Comment Above all, it didn’t convert the Donald Trump voted out of office in unconverted. two years? I hope so — which is why It doesn’t take a lot to get the average you should think hard about that “meh.” This week’s elections were, at most, a very modest voter to tell you what he doesn’t like about Donald Trump: the nastiness, the rebuke of a president reviled by many of divisiveness, the lying, the tweeting, the his opponents, this columnist included, as chaos, the epic boastfulness matched by an unprecedented danger to the health of bottomless self-pity. As my colleague Frank liberal democracy at home and abroad. The Bruni has astutely observed, Trump is as American people don’t entirely agree. transparent as they come: You don’t need We might consider listening to them a bit a Ph.D. in psychology to know that the more — and to ourselves somewhat less. president is an insecure narcissist with daddy The 28-seat swing that gave Democrats issues. control of the House wasn’t even half the 63 Then again, what does the average voter seats Republicans won in 2010. Yet even that think about the people who pompously style shellacking (to use Barack Obama’s word) themselves “the Resistance”? I don’t just did nothing to help Mitt Romney’s chances mean the antifa thugs and restaurant hecklers two years later. The Republican gain in the and the Farrakhan Fan Club wing of the Senate was more predictable in a year when women’s movement, though that’s a part of so many red-state Democrats were up for it. re-election. But it underscores what a non- I mean the rest of the Trump despisers, wave election this was. the people who detest not only the man but It also underscores that while “the also contemn his voters (and constantly Resistance” is good at generating lots of let them know it); the ones who heard the votes, it hasn’t figured out how to turn the votes into seats. Liberals are free to bellyache words “basket of deplorables” and said to themselves: Bingo. They measure their moral all they want that they have repeatedly won worth not through an effort at understanding the overall popular vote for the presidency and Congress while still losing elections, and but by the intensity of their disdain. They are — so they think — always right, yet often that the system is therefore “rigged.” But that’s the system in which everyone’s surprised by events. I was a charter member of this camp. playing — and one they had no trouble Intellectual honesty ought to compel us to winning in until just a few years ago. To admit that we achieved precisely the opposite complain about it makes them sound like of what we intended. Trumpism is more whiners in a manner reminiscent of Trump entrenched today than ever. The result of in 2016, when he thought he was going to the midterms means, if nothing else, that the lose. It’s also a reminder that, in politics, president survived his first major political test intensity is not strategy. You have to be able more than adequately. And unless Democrats to convert. change, he should be seen as the odds-on The Resistance didn’t convert. favorite to win in 2020. It didn’t convert when it nominated left- To repeat: I’d hate to see that happen. I wing candidates in right-leaning states like Florida and Georgia. It didn’t convert when it want Trump, and Trumpism, to lose. But poured its money into where its heart was — if the Resistance party doesn’t find a way to become a shrewder, humbler opposition a lithesome Texas hopeful with scant chance party, that’s not going to happen. The day of victory — rather than where the dollars Democrats take charge in the House would were most needed. It didn’t convert when it be a good opportunity to stop manning grew more concerned with the question of imaginary barricades, and start building real how much Trump did not pay in taxes than bridges to the other America. with the question of how much you pay in ■ taxes. Brett Stephens is a columnist for the New It didn’t convert when Chuck Schumer York Times. chose to make Brett Kavanaugh’s 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. 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.
