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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Albatross often is a positive word for golfers. For those of you who don’t know, an albatross is a score of 2 on a par 5 hole, a very unusual feat, more unusual than a hole-in-one.

This time, albatross, as used in the headline above, conveys the negative. Credit must go to national columnist George Will for using it in the negative to describe Donald Trump. In a very well-written piece for the Washington Post, Will put it this way:

“Donald Trump’s distinctive rhetorical style — think of a drunk with a bullhorn reading aloud James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” under water — poses an almost insuperable challenge to people whose painful duty is to try to extract clarity from his effusions. For example, on Friday, during a long stream of semi-consciousness in Fort Worth, this man who as president would nominate members of the federal judiciary vowed to open up libel laws to make it easier to sue — to intimidate and punish — people who write “negative” things. Well.”

It is not news, Will continues that that Trump has neither respect for nor knowledge of the Constitution. “…and he probably is unaware that he would have to ‘open up’ many Supreme Court First Amendment rulings in order to achieve his aim. His obvious aim is to chill free speech, for the comfort of the political class, of which he is now a gaudy ornament.”

More from Will.

“The night before his promise to make America great again through censorship, Trump, his sister, a federal judge, ‘[signed] a certain bill’ and that Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. also ‘signed that bill. So, the leading Republican candidate, the breadth of whose ignorance is the eighth wonder of the world, actually thinks that judges ‘sign’ bills. Trump is a presidential aspirant who would flunk an eighth-grade civics exam.

“Unfortunately, Marco Rubio recognized reality and found his voice 254 days after Trump’s scabrous announcement of his candidacy to rescue the United States from Mexican rapists. And 222 days after Trump disparaged John McCain’s war service (“I like people that weren’t captured”). And 95 days after Trump said that maybe a protester at his rally ‘should have been roughed up.’ And 95 days after Trump re-tweeted that 81 percent of white murder victims are killed by blacks. (Eighty-two percent are killed by whites.) And 94 days after Trump said he supports torture even “if it doesn’t work.” And 79 days after Trump said he might have approved the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. And 72 days after Trump proved that he does not know the nuclear triad from the “Nutcracker” ballet. And 70 days after Trump, having been praised by Vladimir Putin, reciprocated by praising the Russian murderer and dictator. And so on.”

Trump is a con man and a clown act. If he wins the Republican nomination as appears more likely every day, his ascension will almost assure Hillary Clinton’s victory for “a third Obama term.” It also might enable Democrats to re-take Congress.

There is a lot at stake. Of course, one thing is the presidency itself. The other is control of Congress. But probably the most important stake is the ability to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice which, as a lifetime appointment, could mean more than any Executive or Legislative Branch position.

Here’s hoping that Republicans will come to their senses, disavow the blowhard Trump and turn to someone with the ability to find the smart middle ground on a wide range of public policy issues facing this country, including the Supreme Court.