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.

That headline puts it mildly.

One of my favorite columnists, George Wall, called it the “worst inaugural address in history.”

Another favorite columnist, Peggy Noonan, had kinder words, saying the address “was utterly and uncompromisingly Trumpian.”

Washington Post editorial writers put it this way:

“… he repudiated the postwar precedent of values-based U.S. leadership of and engagement with the rest of the world. The United States over the decades has done well by doing good; American generosity, and its support for fair global rules, fostered prosperity in Europe and Asia and beyond, which in turn redounded to the United States’ advantage at home. Announcing falsely that protection will lead to great prosperity and strength,” Mr. Trump derided engagement and interdependence as suckers’ games, elevated “winning” as the only goal and endorsed the zero-sum notion that all nations “put their own interests first.” It made for a dark vision indeed — the opposite, if such can be imagined, of Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural appeal to ‘the better angels of our nature.’”

And the Wall Street Journal said this:

“As he often does, Mr. Trump also made American life today seem much darker than it is, invoking “this American carnage” in one jarring passage. Subtlety is not the Trump style, and America has problems, but carnage is a word better suited for Aleppo under Russian bombing. Many Americans will wonder what country Mr. Trump is talking about, even if the speech ended with an appeal for unity, patriotism and solidarity.”

To me, it seemed like the speech, from the portico on the Capitol Building, was intended more for his campaign audience than for all those he now will attempt to govern.

I also thought that, whatever one thought of their politics, now former President Barack Obama and failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton showed remarkable grace as they sat only a few feet from the new president and heard him denigrate everything they stood for.

So, here then, from me – one observer of this incredible transition of power in “our” democracy – is a list of some random comments from my friends and neighbors as they tried to grapple with the events of January 20.

• One person said, “I thought he was stoking the fears of his followers with the same negative view of American life that we saw during his campaign. It’s completely off kilter with reality. I also thought he put himself in a tough situation because it will be so hard to improve an economy that, compared to many places in the world, that has been doing so well lately.”
• Another repeated the point that Trump should have tried to strike a higher note that talking about, in one example, “American carnage.”
• Finally, another said, “I thought Trump strike exactly the right chords. It is time for a change in American and I believe Trump speaks to that need.

I, for one, was ready for the first steps in a style and demeanor that showed America’s new leader as one who is trying to governor, not just to campaign.

Didn’t happen. Who knows what’s next?