Northwest Herald Editorial Board John Rung, Kate Weber, Dan McCaleb, Jason Schaumburg, Kevin Lyons, Jon Styf, John Sahly, Val Katzenstein
OPINIONS SATURDAY
THUMBS UP, THUMBS DOWN
NWHerald.com
August 1, 2015 Northwest Herald Section A • Page 7
Facebook.com/NWHerald
@NWHerald
SKETCH VIEW
Night Out can improve neighborhoods The Northwest Herald Editorial Board offers this week’s thumbs up and thumbs down: Thumbs up: To National Night Out events planned throughout the county this month. The annual events will include music, food, information and presentations by local law enforcement and fire departments. Removing barriers between officials and residents is an admirable goal that can help improve communication, promote partnerships and make neighborhoods safer, better places to live. Thumbs down: To the increased mosquito presence in McHenry County. The exponential surge, set off by the high amount of rain the county got in May and June, puts a damper on everybody being able to enjoy a summer evening without getting eaten alive. Crystal Lake planned to spray overnight Friday into Saturday to help manage the population. Thumbs up: To Harvard High School for finding a way to put Chromebook laptops into the hands of all the school’s nearly 700 students for this upcoming school year. Technology moves much faster than expensive textbooks can be printed, and, in the meantime, students can get comfortable with computers in a way that will better prepare them for the future. Thumbs down: To the Chicago Bears’ new media policies at training camp in Bourbonnais. The Bears are limiting the amount of information it allows reporters to report, which limits the amount of information fans of the team will receive. Reporters are not allowed to blog or tweet about what they observe during training camp practices. Player availability after practice will not exist. This is the arrogance of a team and league that wants to control the message and keep information from its fans.
ANOTHER VIEW
Indicted in Cincinnati As the nation approaches the first anniversary of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, its effects are more visible than ever – in North Charleston, South Carolina; Baltimore; Waller County, Texas; and now Cincinnati. Had the nation not fixed its eyes on police behavior over the past year, it’s impossible to know how law enforcement officials in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County would have reacted to the shooting of Samuel Dubose at the hands of officer Raymond Tensing. It’s possible, however, the situation in Cincinnati would be very different. Tensing fatally shot Dubose during a traffic stop July 19. Ten days later, county prosecutors secured a murder indictment against the officer, who was subsequently fired from the University of Cincinnati Police Department. They also released official police body camera footage, which appears to show Tensing fell to the ground but was not “dragged” along by Dubose’s car, as the ex-officer had claimed. “The officer was wrong, and when we’re wrong, we have to be held accountable,” Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell said Wednesday, even as he warned the city would not tolerate violence on the streets. By moving quickly, making clear statements and respecting the community’s interest in transparency, these officials reduced the likelihood of a violent reaction. “I thought it was going to be covered up,” Audrey Dubose, Dubose’s mother, said at a news conference at which the family called for protests to be “peaceful and nonaggressive.” Just as no one wants to see law enforcement officials fumbling as they did in Ferguson, no one wants to see the wanton violence that raged on the streets of that town. What’s beyond doubt is the Ferguson imbroglio led directly to important policy changes. The debate about the value of police body cameras, providing footage that proved to be crucial in the Dubose case, is essentially over. Policymakers also are re-examining police equipment, training and tactics, and there’s a long-overdue push to gather better data about police use of force. It’s true that for those pushing reform, the incident that led to last year’s Ferguson episode turned out not to be an ideal example of police misbehavior. A thorough Justice Department investigation showed there wasn’t much of a case that the shooting of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson was an instance of unreasonable force. There’s a lesson in that, too: Even as things change, allegiance to facts and timeless legal protections for defendants must remain at the core of the nation’s criminal justice system. The process must play out fairly for Tensing. Yet for too long that system has felt stacked to too many people, its noble principles unevenly applied, particularly in minority communities. Ferguson brought years of legitimate grievances to the front of the public’s mind. The nation’s struggle to come to grips with its racist past, the persistence of bias and, regardless of who’s hurt, the much-too-widespread reality of unprofessional policing is far from finished. But Americans are more focused on these issues now than they have been in many years – and that’s having positive, real-world effects. The Washington Post
THE FIRST
AMENDMENT
VIEWS
Binge read 8 Trump books; what I learned By CARLOS LOZADA The Washington Post Sitting down with the collected works of Donald J. Trump is unlike any literary experience I’ve ever had or ever could imagine. I spent this past week reading eight of his books – three memoirs, three business-advice titles and his two political books, all published between 1987 and 2011 – hoping to develop a unified theory of the man, or at least find a method in the Trumpness. Instead, I found ... well, is there a single word that combines revulsion, amusement, respect and confusion? That is how it feels, sometimes by turns, often all at once, to binge on Trump’s writings. Over the course of 2,000 pages, I encountered a world where bragging is breathing and insulting is talking, where repetition and contradiction come standard, where vengefulness and insecurity erupt at random. Elsewhere, such qualities might get in the way of the story. With Trump, they are the story. There is little else. He writes about his real estate dealings, his TV show, his country, but after a while that all feels like an excuse. The one deal Trump has been pitching his entire career – the one that now culminates in his play for that most coveted piece of property, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. – is himself. “We need a leader that wrote ‘The Art of the Deal,’ ” Trump declared during his presidential campaign announcement in June, and he repeatedly has cited that 1987 book in other appearances. In it, Trump, then 41, explains the power of psychology and deception – he calls it “bravado” or “truthful hyperbole” – in his early real estate acquisitions. Before he was a brand name, he had to convince people he was worth their time. It was small things here and there. Like asking his architect to gussy up the sketches for a hotel so it seemed like they spent huge sums on the plans, boosting interest in his proposal. Or having a construction crew drive machinery back and forth on a site in Atlantic City so the visiting board of directors would be duped into thinking the work was far along. “If necessary,” he instructed a supervisor, “have the bulldozers dig up dirt on one side of the site and dump it on the other.” “I play to people’s fantasies,” Trump explained. “... It’s an innocent form of exaggeration – and a very effective form of promotion.” Perception is reality, he wrote, and achieving an “aura” (a recurring word in his writings) around his projects, his ideas and himself is essential. Trump has been mocked for
emblazoning his name on every building, plane, boat or company he touches. “Mostly it’s a marketing strategy,” he wrote. “Trump buildings get higher rents.” But this is more than branding. Trump wrote of his buildings as if they were living beings – friends or even lovers. “My relationship with 40 Wall Street began as a young man,” he wrote in “The Art of the Comeback,” published in 1997. “From the moment I laid eyes on it, I was mesmerized by its beauty and its splendor.” Or, referring to his 110,000-square-foot private club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump wrote: “My love affair with Mar-a-Lago began in 1985.” Or, of one of his longest-standing properties: “Trump Tower, like a good friend, was there when I needed it.” These relationships seem no less meaningful, and are certainly far more lasting, than those with, say, his two former wives. For all the gushing over his properties, Trump is hardheaded when it comes to married life, one of the few arenas he cannot fully control, where it is by definition not all about him. “My marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection,” he wrote in “Surviving at the Top,” released in 1990. Trump’s world is binary, divided into class acts and total losers. He even detailed how physically unattractive he finds particular reporters, for no reason I can fathom other than it crossed his mind. The discipline of book writing does not dilute Trump; it renders him in concentrated form. Streaks of insecurity ran through the books. Trump constantly reminded readers he studied at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, a concession to the credentialism he purports to despise. (“I went to the great Wharton School of Finance and did well.” ... “I learned at the Wharton School of Finance that the economy runs in cycles.” ... “I have had friends, many friends, who went to the Wharton School with me who were very smart.”) Everything he owns is the best, biggest, hottest. His apartment: “There may be no other apartment in the world like it.” His yacht: “Probably the most beautiful yacht ever built.” His living room: “While I can’t honestly say I need an 80-foot living room, I get a kick out of having one.” And his third wife, Melania: “Considered by many, including me, to be one of the most beautiful women in the world.” Trump claimed to dislike parties and socializing, but he couldn’t help but boast about his
star-studded galas, exclusive dinners and celebrity friendships. His books doubled as a wall of fame, stuffed with pictures of the Donald, with notables from Liberace to Tiger Woods to Hillary Clinton. (“The First Lady is a wonderful woman who has handled pressure incredibly well,” read the caption.) He’s not above betraying their confidences, either. Trump reported at a dinner with Frank Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board went on a rant about “[expletive] broads” being “the scum of the earth.” And recalling the time Michael Jackson and his then-girlfriend Lisa Marie Presley stayed at his Palm Beach club, Trump put all doubts about their liaison to rest. “People often ask me whether or not the relationship was a sham. ... I can tell you, at least for a period of time, those two folks were really getting it on.” Trump had moved on from autobiographies to businessadvice books, adapting elements of his life into bite-size financial wisdom. “Don’t let the brevity of these passages prevent you from savoring the profundity of the advice you are about to receive,” he wrote at the beginning of “How to Get Rich” (2004). I’m no billionaire, but much of the advice usually falls between obvious and useless. Stay focused, he said. Hire a great assistant. Think big. Where he gets specific, it’s stuff such as: “The best way to ask for a raise is to wait for the right time.” Or this gem from “Think Like a Billionaire” (2004): “People should always be encouraged to follow their dreams (my children have) but realize that a lot of time and money can be wasted chasing dreams that just weren’t meant to be true.” Even if your dreams aren’t meant to be, Trump’s are, because his dream is the American dream. Throughout the books, he conflated himself with New York City (“When I’m attacked, in a strange way, so is New York.”), and because the Manhattan skyline embodies the country’s aspirations, he becomes, by the transitive property of Trumpness, America. “When you mess with the American Dream, you’re on the fighting side of Trump,” he warned. He accused regulators – or “burons,” a cross between “bureaucrats” and “morons” – of “Dreamicide.” Trump’s dream, however, is born of a narrow view of America. They say presidents struggle to break out of their bubbles, but Trump has designed his quite deliberately. “The reason my hair looks so neat all the time is because I don’t have to deal with the elements,” he explained. “I live in the building where I work. I take an elevator from my
bedroom to my office. The rest of the time, I’m either in my stretch limousine, my private jet, my helicopter, or my private club in Palm Beach, Florida. ... If I happen to be outside, I’m probably on one of my golf courses, where I protect my hair from overexposure by wearing a golf hat.” Even when Trump tries to relate, he can’t pull it off. In one instance, he complained about awful traffic on the way to the airport. A common gripe. “Luckily,” he added, “it was my plane we were heading to, my plane, so it’s not as if I could have missed the flight.” Beyond his bubble, Trump has other aspects of the commander in chief role down. He is reluctant to admit mistakes, for instance. When he does, he usually says he miscalculated how awful other people would be. Or it’s the Trumpiest remorse possible: “I have only one regret in the women department – that I never had the opportunity to court Lady Diana Spencer ... a dream lady.” His confrontations with the news media (“a business of distortions and lies”) would make Ari Fleischer’s and Jay Carney’s press shops look cuddly. After questioning whether Ronald Reagan had “anything beneath that smile” in his first book, Trump eventually shifted to the standard GOP Gipper worship. Finally, he struggled to delegate. As president, he would appoint himself U.S. trade representative, for example, and “take personal charge of negotiations with the Japanese, the French, the Germans, and the Saudis,” he wrote in “The America We Deserve” (2000). “Our trading partners would have to sit across the table from Donald Trump, and I guarantee you the rip-off of the United States would end.” Yes, Trump has a pretty serious savior complex, a common affliction for presidential hopefuls. “Look, I do deals – big deals – all the time,” he wrote in “Time to Get Tough” (2011). “We need a dealmaker in the White House.” The first Republican presidential debate next week should help clarify whether Trump is a real candidate or merely a sign of the GOP’s disenchantment with its options. Either way, his rivals should brace themselves. “I’ll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win,” Trump wrote. “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition.” Judging from these books, I’m not sure how badly he really wants the presidency. To win it – yes, I think he’d love to close that deal and, of course, write another book about it. But to actually be president, day to day? Trump always has been about the next big thing, whether the next deal, spouse or fight.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.