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 use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as 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.

I ask that question as I, along with many others in the country, are still recovering from the second presidential debate.

It was one for the ages — and not in a good way.  Donald Trump may have survived, but barely in light of his imploding campaign.

It deserves to implode, given his absolutely deplorable conduct, not just recently, but over the last 20 or so years of his life, if not longer. Telling the truth is not something he knows how to do. Neither is valuing people for what they are – people.

Hillary Clinton’s opponents could say similar things about her and, truth be told (pardon that phrase in this blog), Clinton has not lived up to truth as a model in her political life. It’s just that, compared to Trump, Clinton comes off nearly as a truth teller.

I could write more about the terrible character of this presidential election, but, for now, let me simply offer these quotes from the Washington Post

From Richard Cohen – Trump Declares Moral Bankruptcy

“Over the weekend, Donald Trump did what he always does when things go south for him. He walked away. He announced he is not the man at 70 he had been at 59 when he had boasted of sexual assault, and he pledged “to be a better man tomorrow.’ With that, he effectively declared moral bankruptcy, paying about a dime on the dollar of sincerity.

“It was, of course, what Trump had done six times in business, only this time the crisis was not about his finances, but his character. He had been caught talking trash about women. He has been caught boasting about committing the sort of sex crimes transit cops are always on the lookout for. He said he had hit on a married woman soon after he himself had been married. For all of that, he had ‘regret.’

“Then, like the angel he thinks he is, he took flight. He left his own body and, looking down, pronounced in his videotaped apology that the Donald Trump who said all those repugnant things, the Donald Trump who managed to break centuries of newspaper tradition against using certain words, the Donald Trump who issued a casting call for the alleged victims of Bill Clinton, the Donald Trump who often talked about women in the most despicable terms, the Donald Trump who listened to Howard Stern take apart his daughter’s physique like she was a Lego creation, the Donald Trump who went vile on Megyn Kelly and who has called women “dogs” and “pigs” and who berated a former Miss Universe for gaining weight and who made a tabloid spectacle of his extramarital affair with Marla Maples, that that Donald Trump doesn’t exist anymore. The man erased his own past.”
From George Will – Trump is the GOP’s Chemotherapy

“Today, however, Trump should stay stop the ticket for four reasons. First, he will give the nation the pleasure of seeing him join the one cohort, of the many cohorts he disdains, that he most despises — ‘losers.’ Second, by continuing to campaign in the spirit of St. Louis, he can remind the nation of the useful axiom that there is no such thing as rock bottom. Third, by persevering through Nov. 8 he can simplify the GOP’s quadrennial exercise of writing its post-campaign autopsy, which this year can be published Nov. 9 in one sentence: “Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan.” Fourth, Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy, a nauseating but, if carried through to completion, perhaps a curative experience.”

 

From Michael Gerson – Republicans Deserve Their Sad Fate

“To many people outside the talk-radio hothouse, I can attest, Trump’s debate performance was appalling, contemptible, shameful, squalid, vile. Do we really want a president who views the rule of law as a means to imprison his opposition? A president who dismissed talk of sexual assault on the theory that boys will be boys? “A president who urges a foreign power to hack his opponent, then excuses that power when it is caught? A president who accuses his opponent of killing American soldiers based on a position he actually took himself.

“Trump and his advisers must know that the conservative talk-radio audience, and the Republican primary electorate, is different from a national electorate, which actually includes minorities, young people and women who don’t like disgusting boors. Perhaps Trump’s strategy was a recognition that even his strongest supporters were on the verge of bolting and needed to be appeased. Perhaps Trump’s knowledge of policy is so thin that it fills three or four minutes of a 90-minute debate and all he has left is trash talk. Or perhaps he is captive to his impulses, incapable of shame and nasty to the core.

“Whatever the explanation, Trump achieved the worst possible outcome for the GOP. He was good enough with his base to avoid a generalized revolt, and bad enough with the rest of the country to continue his slide toward major defeat.

“This sad Republican fate is deserved. It is the culmination, the fruition, of an absurdly simplistic anti-establishment attitude. The Trump campaign is what happens when you choose a presidential candidate without the taint of electoral experience — and all the past vetting that comes with it. It is what happens when you pick a candidate who has not engaged in serious public argument over a period in which his or her views and consistency can be tested. It is what happens when you embrace a candidate only on the basis of an outsider persona, who lacks actual political skills — like making a policy argument, empathizing with a voter or avoiding a constant stream of distracting gaffes.”

 

From the Washington Post Editorial Board – Donald Trump Unleashes a Stream of Falsehoods

Politicians lie all the time, it is sometimes said. Never before has an American politician come as close as Donald Trump has to making the saying literally true.

Despite what you may have heard at Sunday night’s presidential debate…

• Syrian refugees are vetted before they enter the country.
• Americans are taxed at lower rates than the citizens of many other developed countries.
• Trump publicly backed the Iraq War before the invasion. His claims otherwise have been repeatedly debunked.
• The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has not endorsed Mr. Trump.
• The country’s nuclear arsenal is not “exhausted.”
• The U.S. economy is growing at faster than 1 percent per year.
• There has been hacking of U.S. email accounts this election year. The U.S. intelligence community has blamed the Russian government.
• Trump did urge his Twitter followers to “check out” an alleged sex tape involving former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
• Hillary Clinton is not responsible for the racist “birther” campaign Mr. Trump waged against President Obama.
• She did not laugh at a rape victim.
• “Clean coal” is a contradiction in terms.
• The trade deficit was not $800 billion last year.
• Clinton has not proposed admitting “hundreds of thousands” of Syrian refugees.
• She does not favor a single-payer health-care plan.
• Most health-care premiums are not spiking by “68 percent, 59 percent, 71 percent.”
• The Islamic State does not control “a good chunk” of Libya’s oil.
• The North American Free Trade Agreement was not a “disaster” for jobs.
• Clinton did not order the deletion of State Department emails after they were under subpoena.
• S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens did not make 600 calls for help before dying in the September 2012 Benghazi attacks.
• The United States is not “giving” Iran $150 billion as part of the nuclear deal.
• There is no evidence “many people saw the bombs all over the apartment” of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooters.
• Most African Americans do not live in bombed-out inner cities.

So does lying matter in this election?  My answer is yes. The unfortunate fact is that both Trump and Clinton have lied to advance their causes. It’s just that Clinton has lied less and, given that, I intend to cast my vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils.