A4
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
Write a letter
news@bakercityherald.com
EDITORIAL
Freeway
frustration
The sequence of events is as predictable as it is
frustrating.
Snow begins to fall along Interstate 84 in the Blue
Mountains between La Grande and Pendleton.
The freeway gets slick.
Vehicles — most often commercial trucks, and
often trucks that don’t have traction chains installed
— lose control or momentum.
The lanes in one direction, and sometimes both,
are blocked.
And once again the main travel route through
Northeastern Oregon is closed.
When the freeway is blocked for more than a few
hours — and this is often the case when trucks are
involved, as they’re more cumbersome to move than
passenger cars are — the closure can extend for more
than 150 miles. As safe parking areas for commercial
trucks are claimed in, say, La Grande, the Oregon De-
partment of Transportation (ODOT) frequently has
to close the freeway at Baker City and, as the domino
effect continues, in Ontario.
The effect works in the opposite direction, too. A
couple crashes in the eastbound lanes in the Burnt
River Canyon between Durkee and Huntington can
trigger a cascade of closures starting in Baker City
and later spreading to La Grande and Pendleton.
Weather-related closures on I-84 aren’t a new
phenomenon, to be sure.
Blizzards, particularly through passes such
as Ladd Canyon and the Blue Mountains near
Meacham, can create whiteouts so severe that closing
the freeway is necessary.
But although ODOT doesn’t have detailed histori-
cal data about the frequency of I-84 closures in our
region, even a cursory review of media reports shows
that the freeway has closed more often in the past
several years than in past decades — and in condi-
tions that aren’t particularly treacherous.
As mentioned above, it hardly rates as a surprise
when the freeway closes, even during a relatively
modest storm such as the one that descended on the
Blue Mountains Monday evening, Dec. 13.
A cold front brought a few hours of heavy snow,
but this was no extended blizzard that cut visibility
to the length of a truck trailer and made it dangerous
for all vehicles.
ODOT’s press release announcing the closure not-
ed that the culprit was “multiple spun out trucks” in
a three-mile section of the westbound lanes between
La Grande and Meacham.
The closure, fortunately, was relatively brief, last-
ing about four hours.
Yet it was also the latest example of how fragile
this vital transportation pike seems to have become.
It’s not an exaggeration to wonder whether it’s pos-
sible to get through even a modest storm — of which
we can expect several in a typical winter — without
a closure.
The culprit in Monday’s closure — unchained
trucks — is a common one in freeway closures, said
Tom Strandberg, a spokesman for ODOT in La
Grande. In hopes of encouraging drivers to put on
chains, in late September the state doubled the fi ne
for failing to comply with the chain requirement from
$440 to $880. That’s a reasonable change. Unchained
trucks not only are responsible for many freeway
closures, which is at best annoying, but worse, they
also pose a threat to other drivers.
The problem isn’t limited to commercial trucks,
certainly. All drivers on the freeway during win-
ter need to be prepared for snow and ice, either by
installing traction tires or by bringing chains. And all
motorists should drive with caution, according to the
conditions.
Over the past couple decades, ODOT has done
many things to try to make I-84 safer, including
building a third lane on steep grades such as Ladd
Canyon and Spring Creek, installing electronic signs
to warn drivers of bad weather, and improving chain
up zones.
Those are worthwhile improvements. But none
can replace plain old common sense.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Bob Dole deserved respect
By GEORGE SKELTON
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For de-
cades, Bob Dole wouldn’t talk about the
war wounds that left him with crippling
disabilities. But by his 1996 presidential
race, he was opening up.
“There I was over in Italy on April
14, 1945, a young 2nd lieutenant…. Our
job was to prevail, and we were prevail-
ing, and I was leading a platoon and I
got shot,” I heard him tell workers at a
bomber parts plant in Pico Rivera dur-
ing the ‘96 California primary.
“And I spent the next 39 months in
and out of hospitals learning how to
feed myself and go to the bathroom and
walk and all those things we take for
granted.”
Dole had been leading an infantry
charge and just dragged a wounded
radioman to safety when mortar frag-
ments shattered his right shoulder and
cracked several vertebrae.
He never regained the use of his
right hand, and his right arm was
virtually useless. His left arm was weak.
It would take him an extra hour to get
dressed every morning.
Aboard Dole’s campaign plane fl ying
to San Francisco after the B-2 plant
stop, I asked the Senate majority leader
why for most of his life he hesitated to
talk about the combat wounds.
“I thought it was a private matter,”
he answered. “I thought people might
think, ‘The guy’s looking for pity.’”
So, why now, I asked.
“I’m trying to break down this bar-
rier between those of us in politics and
the real people ... and their belief we’re
just power hungry and insiders and we
don’t care about them. We’ve never had
any trouble in life. We just all ended up
in Congress. Let ‘em know I’ve had a life
too.”
A noble cause but not a promis-
ing one. It’s in the American DNA to
cynically look down on politicians with
suspicion. Actually, most are mixed bags
of strengths and weaknesses like the
voters who elect them. Like Dole.
He grew up on the Kansas plains,
survived the war wounds, rose to the
highest perch of the U.S. Senate, ran
once for vice president and three times
for president, and fi nally won the Re-
publican nomination in 1996.
Dole died at 98 on Dec. 5. He’d been
diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.
He was respected as a practical com-
promiser who worked with both sides
to cut good deals for the country. But he
also was denigrated as a gut fi ghter who
hit below the belt.
In 1996, Dole was trying to smooth
the hard edges on his reputation as a
meanie.
The most infamous example of Dole
throwing a low blow came during his
1976 vice presidential debate with
Democrat Walter Mondale. I was sitting
in the Houston auditorium helping to
cover the debate for The Times and
winced when Dole implied that Demo-
crats were to blame for war.
“If we added up the killed and
wounded in Democrat wars in this
century it would be about 1.6 million
Americans,” he said.
Mondale swiftly replied, “Sen.
Dole richly earned his reputation as a
hatchet man tonight.”
Later, Dole admitted he’d over-
reached and displayed his familiar
self-deprecating humor.
“I went for the jugular,” he said. “My
own.”
After President Ford chose Dole as
his running mate at the GOP con-
vention in Kansas City, fellow Times
reporter Bob Jackson and I spent
several days in the VP nominee’s small
hometown of Russell, Kan., interviewing
relatives and friends.
Western Kansas was much like Cali-
fornia’s Central Valley farm belt, except
for fewer people and no enchanting
Sierra Nevada backdrop. Lots of plain,
hardworking folk.
We talked to Dole’s fi rst wife, Phyllis,
who expressed no bitterness about her
former husband asking for a divorce
after 24 years of marriage. They both
remarried.
“A lot of things he did,” she told us,
“he was proving to himself he could do
them…. The competition of politics may
have been a substitute for the athletics
he missed” as a high school star.
In my 1996 interview, I asked Dole
whether his disability had changed him
personally.
“A little bit,” he replied. “It’s made
me more sensitive.”
He added: “You can’t do anything
about it, you might as well learn to live
with it. And I think it makes you stron-
ger in many ways. You understand not
everybody’s perfect.”
I found Dole very pleasant to talk
with — good natured, candid and
gracious. No demagoguery or hatchet
tossing.
Marty Wilson, who was Dole’s Cali-
fornia campaign manager during the
primary race he won easily, recalls him
not being ruffl ed by personal attacks. A
rare politician.
“I suspect that’s because what he
had to overcome as a young soldier
was so much more challenging than
the silly crap that goes on in politics,”
Wilson says.
Veteran strategist Ken Khachigian,
who ran Dole’s California general elec-
tion campaign, recalls the Kansan’s af-
fi nity for common people. The two were
staying in Santa Barbara, and Dole
asked where they should dine.
“I said, ‘There are a lot of fancy
restaurants in Santa Barbara, but my
favorite is a place where I hung out in
college. It’s not fancy. It has steaks, on-
ion rings, salsa, French fries. It’s called
Joe’s Cafe,’” Khachigian remembers.
“He said, ‘That sounds perfect. Let’s
go there.’ He loved it. Couldn’t have
been happier. It reminded him of a
steakhouse in Russell.”
Stu Spencer, the retired dean of
California political consultants who
was Ford’s national strategist in 1976,
says Dole had “no match” for combin-
ing “a great politician, legislator and
good-humored man. Throw in honesty
and integrity and you wonder why he
wasn’t elected president by acclima-
tion.”
He never came close, losing Califor-
nia and the national electoral vote by
large margins to President Clinton.
But Dole won the nation’s respect —
and deserved it by acclimation.
Political columnist George Skelton
has covered government and politics
for nearly 60 years and for The Los
Angeles Times since 1974.
Your views
Wonderful Christmas events in a
great community
I had the pleasure of seeing the
“hometown” Christmas parade and
lighting the beautiful tree. I am sure
there were well over 1,000 people attend-
for the honest citizens of this wonderful
ing these events. After tending one of
community. I could not be more proud!
the warming barrels for the Lions Club
Thank you from a grateful, longtime
then helping pick up the leftover wood
Baker City resident.
at the end, I went home and forgot my
chair. The next morning I went back and,
Robert McKim
surprise, it was still there. Thank you
Baker City
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Joe Biden: The White
House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,
Washington, D.C. 20500; 202-456-1111; to
send comments, go to www.whitehouse.
gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. offi ce:
313 Hart Senate Offi ce Building, U.S.
Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-
3753; fax 202-228-3997. Portland offi ce: One
World Trade Center, 121 S.W. Salmon St.
Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204; 503-326-
3386; fax 503-326-2900. Baker City offi ce,
1705 Main St., Suite 504, 541-278-1129;
merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. offi ce:
221 Dirksen Senate Offi ce Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244; fax
202-228-2717. La Grande offi ce: 105 Fir St.,
No. 210, La Grande, OR 97850; 541-962-
7691; fax, 541-963-0885; wyden.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd District):
D.C. offi ce: 2182 Rayburn Offi ce Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-6730;
fax 202-225-5774. La Grande offi ce: 1211
Washington Ave., La Grande, OR 97850;
541-624-2400, fax, 541-624-2402; walden.
house.gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State
Capitol, Salem, OR 97310; 503-378-3111;
www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias
Read: oregon.treasurer@ost.state.or.us;
350 Winter St. NE, Suite 100, Salem OR
97301-3896; 503-378-4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F.
Rosenblum: Justice Building, Salem, OR
97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative
documents and information are available
online at www.leg.state.or.us.
State Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Ontario):
Salem offi ce: 900 Court St. N.E., S-403,
Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1730. Email:
Sen.LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
State Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane):
Salem offi ce: 900 Court St. N.E., H-475,
Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460. Email:
Rep.MarkOwens@oregonlegislature.gov