[PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was a reporter for the Daily Astorian (in Astoria, Oregon) and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as an Oregon state government manager and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing pubic policy – to what I write. If you are reading this, thanks for doing so and please don’t hesitate to respond so we can engage in a dialogue, not just a monologue.]

That question has been on my mind lately as we have watched the ego-driven candidate continue to surprise analysts by not falling out of run for the Republican nomination for president.

Trump’s latest incredulity revolves around his charge that George W. Bush was to blame for the 9/11 tragedy.

According to an October 22 column by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal, Trump raised the 9/11 issue in a recent interview. He said, “Look, Jeb said we were safe with my brother. Were we safe? Well, the World Trade Center just fell down.”

Mr. Henninger, who was in New York when the World Trade Center towers when down, went on to write this: “So I have to say, with all respect to Mr. Trump’s easily offended supporters: For Donald Trump to suggest in his syntactically-vague fashion that former President George W. Bush bears blame for September 11, which occurred nine months after he assumed office; or for Donald Trump to revisit 9/11 to promote his thoughts on immigration, is frankly disgusting. His remark about President Bush is an utter falsity, and it demeaned the reality of what happened that day.”

Henninger is right – dead right.

And he is also right in this conclusion in his column:

“Donald Trump fits for now, but poorly. He isn’t the leader of a movement. He’s an impresario of sensations. Reducing 9/11 to a political prop was indeed sensational. It was also beyond the pale.”

Trump is not held to a high standard by today’s media. He gets away with saying stuff that everyone knows is bogus, but the sound-bite quote rules the day. Almost no reporters did deeper and ask Trump to justify his apparent off-the-cuff generalizations which have very little basis, if any, in fact or an ability, if he were somehow to become president, to be achieved.

Here’s hoping that Americans will wake up and consider real people with real solutions who campaign to take the real job as president.

Trump isn’t it.