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.

Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, not one of my favorites, but a good writer, tapped out a decent piece the other day under the headline, “With both parties in crisis, turmoil is the new normal.”

He’s right.

Turmoil is the new normal.  Democrats appear to hate Republicans. Republicans appear to hate Democrats. And, we have a president who appears to hate anyone who doesn’t agree that HE is the answer to every problem, though, frankly, he has few answers himself.

But, what caught my eye in Robinson’s column was this paragraph:

“We have a mental image of the political spectrum. On the right, there is the Republican Party with a set of conservative policies – cut taxes, shrink government, limit entitlements, deregulate, etc. On the left, there is the Democratic Party with a set of liberal policies – expand health care, raise wages, regulate Wall Street, promote fairness, and so on.

I’ll indicate my bias – yes, I have one, if not more, after 40 years in the public policy business – by saying that I think Robinson has a decent description of several Republican, conservative principles, but he errs with the Democrats.

Here’s how.

• Many Republicans want to expand health care, too, though with more individual freedom and private sector involvement than supported by Democrats.
• Many Republicans want to raise wages, though with fewer payoff to unions.
• Many Republicans want to regulate Wall Street, though without assuming that anyone on the Street is a crook.
• And, in the most important distinction, many Republicans want fairness…not just Democrats.

Now, I know Robinson is sick and tired of the erratic President Trump who doesn’t act like a nation’s chief executive. I am sick and tired, too.

But, rather than assume liberal Democrats are always right and conservative Republicans are always wrong, I hope that reasonable people on both sides – yes, there are some remaining – will find a way to seek the hallowed middle ground.

I say that as neither a Republican or a Democrat. I eschewed political labels about 10 years ago when I thought a lobbyist should hew to the middle, not either side

In that way, our country can return to a system of government based on finding compromise between and among competing views. That’s what real democracy is.

*****

Footnote: Robinson also uses the word Democratic to refer to one of the two parties in America’s two-party system of government. He’s probably right in his use of the word, but, as a form of personal protest, I decline to use the word Democratic. Intentionally, I leave off the last two letters…thus the word Democrat. I do so because, as I view them, either in Salem or Washington, D.C., Democrats are not democratic.

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.

As I ask the question in the headline, you may say, “Well, this guy has too much time on his hands!”

Yes, in retirement, I have nothing better to do than ponder questions like this.  Well, not really because, as the intro to this blog says, golf is on my agenda.

And the question takes on even more credibility as some of are glued to the World Series, which is the time when I tend to watch baseball on TV.

The managers in this case – Dave Roberts for the Dodgers and A.J. Grinch for the Astros – are decked out in uniforms as if they intend to play. They won’t and don’t. Still, they wear playing uniforms.

But, imagine if pro football coaches dressed up in football gear, including shoulder pads, leg protections and helmets! Stupid.

Or, if professional hockey coaches came to the bench in hockey protective gear.

Or, if pro basketball coaches wore baggy shorts and shirts without sleeves.

If any of this occurred, we’d be asking why.

But, with baseball, it’s different.

We accept that managers like Roberts and Grinch will get dressed up to play, then not play.

From exhaustive research on the subject – another indication that I have too much time on my hands — all I can determine is that the answer is rooted in the history of baseball.

For inquiring minds like mine, that is not enough.

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.

The question in the headline has been posed in the aftermath of the Arizona senator’s decision not to run for another term. He did so by taking to the Senate floor to launch stinging criticism of President Donald Trump.

My view is that Flake, whom I don’t know personally and have never lobbied, is a winner.

He stood up for ethics and principle, giving up a return to his Senate seat in the process. And he said what many of us have been thinking as we have watched Trump demean the presidency and engage in conduct that only be described as self-centered and narcissistic.

Now, of course, there will be those who say that Flake took the easy way out because he was likely to lose a bid for re-election, even in the Republican primary.

According to the Washington Post, recent polls in Arizona found Flake trailing the Democrat’s likely Senate nominee, Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, as well as potential primary challengers.

Flake’s surprise announcement this week came just minutes after Trump left the Capitol following a rare luncheon with GOP senators and hours after Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) reignited a weeks-long feud with the president over Trump’s temperament.

From the Post: “In an unannounced Senate floor speech Tuesday to explain his decision, Flake excoriated Trump without using his name, delivering an address that was a call to arms to like-minded conservatives and a distress call to the nation.

“We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are now, Flake said.  “If we simply become used to this condition, thinking that it is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe, we must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch is normal. It is not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused as telling it like it is when it is actually reckless, outrageous and undignified.”

Flake’s speech came on top of concerns and criticisms leveled in recent days by former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who also pointed to the coarse nature of the nation’s politics and the character of current leaders — subtle, indirect but indisputable commentaries on Trump.

Flake also has criticized many Republicans, who, he says, have adopted the “belief or the principle that you spend money to get elected. Staying in office, staying in power, has come to overwhelm everything.”

My view, from the cheap seats out West, is that Flake’s action was honorable. He couldn’t live with the current political environment, especially with Trump at the helm, so decided to step aside and, in the private sector, he will have even more chance to criticize Trump and the current Washington, D.C. without fear of political consequences for his home state, Arizona.

Would he have won re-election? We’ll never know. But what we do know is that Senator Flake delivered a solid and telling postscript to his six years in Washington, D.C. He said he would not continue to tolerate the loss of civility in politics in the Nation’s Capitol and, for that matter, I add, in the country at large.

In that way, Flake’s action recalled for me one of my favorite quotes from a past national leader, General Colin Powell…when he said he would not run for president, he “bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

That was more than 10 years ago.  Imagine what the general would say now with the continuing slide downhill in our national politics.

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.

The Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, one of two which I direct (the other is the Department of Pet Peeves), is open again.

This has to be the case because there has been a lot of good material lately, especially in the Wall Street Journal, my favorite newspaper these days.

As director, I have full and complete authority to decide which quotes are worth remembering. There is no advisory committee. There is no second-in-command, with partial authority. There is only me.

So, here goes.

From Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan: “One reason (that Trump may follow Sarah Palin into oblivion) is that there is no hard constituency in America for political incompetence, and that is what he continues to demonstrate. The first sign of political competence is knowing where you stand with the people. He proceeds each day with the confidence of one who thinks his foundation firm when it’s not—it’s shaky. His job is to build support, win people over through persuasion, and score some legislative victories that will encourage a public sense that he is competent, even talented.

“The story of this presidency so far is his inability to do this. He thwarts himself daily with his dramas. In the thwarting he does something unusual: He gives his own supporters no cover. They back him at some personal cost, in workplace conversations and at family gatherings. They are in a hard position. He leaves them exposed by indulging whatever desire seizes him—to lash out, to insult, to say bizarre things. If he acted in a peaceful and constructive way, he would give his people cover.”

Comment: Noonan accurately skewers Trump with this quote: “There is no hard constituency in America for political incompetence.” Good point.

From the Wall Street Journal editorial page:  “Hyperventilating is the modern political default, starting with the President of the United States. But the political flap over the Senate’s ‘blue slip’ courtesy for judicial nominees is even phonier than usual.  The tradition—it isn’t a formal rule—has allowed a home-state senator of either party to signal opposition to a lower-court nominee by refusing to return a sheet of paper known as the blue slip. The tradition was intended to give Senators a chance to flag a particular problem with a nominee that others might not know about, but it was never intended as an ideological pocket veto.”

Comment: The first sentence is what caught my eye here – “hyperventilating is the modern political default.” Of course, the president is the first culprit. All he does is hyperventilate without any apparent plan to solve any of the nation’s problems. But I also thought of New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader in the Senate. He also is chronic hyperventilator.

From a piece by Karl Rove in the WSJ under the headline, “Trump, Corker and the Circular Firing Squad:”  “The feud started more than a week ago , when Senator Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) told a reporter that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly are ‘people that help separate our country from chaos.’

“What good did that do?

“The Tennessee senator was correct when he added that these men ‘work very well together to make sure the policies we put forth around the world are sound and coherent.’ But his first remark made them look bigger and saner than Donald Trump. The president hates that: Advisers who are portrayed that way tend to lose influence and, sometimes, their jobs.

“Mr. Trump responded, unsurprisingly, with a Twitter assault. ‘Bob Corker ‘begged’ me to endorse him for re-election,’ the president wrote. ‘I said ‘NO’ and he dropped out.’ Mr. Trump also said he expected Mr. Corker to ‘stand in the way of our great agenda,’ and that the senator ‘didn’t have the guts to run!’

“What good came from this?”

Comment: The answer, of course, is nothing. While I could applaud Corker for saying what many other colleagues thought – not to mention what I thought — his point only prompted a tirade, call it hyperventilating, from Trump. Nobody won anything.

Again, from Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:  “In early March I met with a dozen Republican U.S. senators for coffee as part of a series in which they invite writers, columnists and historians to share what’s on their mind. The consuming topic was the new president. I wrote some notes on the train down, seized by what I felt was the central challenge Republicans on Capitol Hill were facing. The meeting was off the record, but I think I can share what I said. I said the terrible irony of the 2016 campaign was that Donald Trump was the only one of the 17 GOP primary candidates who could have gone on to win the presidency. Only he had the uniqueness, the outside-the-box-ness to win. At the same time Mr. Trump was probably the only one of the 17 who would not be able to govern, for reasons of temperament, political inexperience and essential nature. It just wouldn’t work. The challenge for Republicans was to make legislative progress within that context.”

Comment: Trump gives supporters and those who should be his allies in Congress no support – or room to hide. He cashes in all his potential support and for what? Just his latest tweet tirade.

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.

In one of my recent blogs, I wrote that, in trying to understand national politics from my home in Oregon, I often reviewed various newspapers, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

With those papers, I would tend to get, respectively, the left and the right.

This was absolutely true this week as the Times wrote an editorial lauding the health care compromise work being done by Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray. Perhaps predictably, the Journal slammed the work as not being balanced between Republican and Democrat aims.

Go no further than these two paragraphs:

From the New York Times: “…the Alexander-Murray deal represents real progress. These two no-nonsense lawmakers — the leading Republican and Democrat on the Senate health committee — have done yeoman’s work trying to fix a mess created largely by Mr. Trump. Their bill would appropriate money for payments to insurance companies that the president said he was stopping last week. He said they amounted to an illegal corporate bailout — a blatant lie. These payments, authorized by the A.C.A., or Obamacare, compensate insurers for lowering the deductibles and co-payments for low-income families. Further, Mr. Alexander and Ms. Murray would require the administration to spend $106 million on advertising and on people to help people sign up for insurance when open enrollment begins on Nov. 1. Mr. Trump’s minions at the Department of Health and Human Services slashed spending on outreach efforts in recent months.

From the Wall Street Journal: “How does Washington define “bipartisan”? We are about to find out if it means that Republicans surrender to everything Democrats want, or if it means a genuine trade of policy priorities in which both sides get something and the country benefits.

“That’s the question to ask about this week’s deal between Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray to appropriate two years of funding for Obama Care’s ‘cost-sharing’ reductions that flow to insurers. The Trump Administration last week cut off these subsidies, which the Obama Administration paid without an appropriation from Congress. A federal judge ruled last year that those payments are illegal. Democrats would also get about $100 million for advertising ObamaCare.

“In sum, Democrats get what they care most about in politics: More to spend. And the structure of ObamaCare survives.”

So, which is the right view – the Times or the Journal?

Who knows, but probably neither.

One fact is that, if legislators in Oregon or Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., try to find middle ground, the first proposal out of the box rarely is the final word.

Other than the drafters propose amendments in one direction or the other. In this case in D.C., President Donald Trump, who wouldn’t know a good health care bill if he saw it, went both ways. First, he said he would support the effort, lauding both Alexander and Murray. A day or so later, he said, no, the effort wasn’t worth anything and he would oppose it.

I hope reasonable elected officials on both the right and the left – yes, there are a few remaining – will work hard to find the best middle ground on health care. I believe it exists. In many ways, I care less about the details and more about the process that produces a result.

We – and they – are facing a checkered history. First, President Barack Obama worked only with Democrats to enact a new federal entitlement, which has been almost impossible to remove or limit. Then, more recently, Republicans worked only with themselves to proposing repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

Neither effort represented good public policy. Perhaps Alexander and Murray can revise their first effort to gather the requisite number of votes and move this country forward on heath care.

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.

When Senator Bob Corker took on President Donald Trump a few days ago, he hit on what could very well be an apt description of the Trump White House.

He called it “an adult day care center.”

Of course, Trump was incensed and engaged in tweet-combat with Corker whom he belittled even as the senator was set to make good on a pledge not to run for more than two terms.

Despite Trump, the Washington Post took on the task of checking out the day care center analogy and, through confidential conversations with 18 White House aides, confirmed at last part of the description of a White House operation where a president is impulsive, impetuous and difficult to manage.

Here is a summary of some of the Post’s findings about aides spending a significant part of their time devising ways to rein in and control the president.

• During the campaign, when President Trump’s team wanted him to stop talking about a certain issue — such as when he attacked a Gold Star military family — they sometimes presented him with polls demonstrating how the controversy was harming his candidacy.
• During the transition, when aides needed Trump to decide on a looming issue or appointment, they often limited him to a shortlist of two or three options and urged him to choose one.
• Now in the White House, when advisers hope to prevent Trump from making what they think is an unwise decision, they frequently try to delay his final verdict — hoping he may reconsider after having time to calm down.
• “If you visit the White House today, you see aides running around with red faces, shuffling paper and trying to keep up with this president,” said one Republican in frequent contact with the administration. “That’s what the scene is.”
• One defining feature of managing Trump is frequent praise, which can leave his team in what seems to be a state of perpetual compliments. The White House pushes out news releases overflowing with top officials heaping flattery on Trump. In one particularly memorable Cabinet meeting this year, each member went around the room lavishing the president with accolades.

By contrast, the president’s chief of staff, retired military general John Kelly, said he was not brought into the top job to control anything (or say anything), but, rather, to manage the flow of information to the president “so that he can make the best decisions.”

According to the Washington Post report, Kelly also praised Trump as “a decisive guy” and “a very thoughtful man” whose sole focus is on advancing American interests. “He takes information in from every avenue he can receive it,” Kelly said. “I restrict no one, by the way, from going in to see him. But when we go in to see him now, rather than onesies and twosies, we go in and help him collectively understand what he needs to understand to makes these vital decisions.”

Still, Corker’s analogy, the Post says, underscored the uneasy atmosphere within the West Wing, where criticism of the president’s behavior is only whispered.

It is a fact that all White House staffs adjust to the style of a president. There is no choice. But, in this case, the perceptions flowing from the Post story tend to underscore the sensitive nature of Trump who responds to every perceived slight with a tweet-crusade of his own.

With all the tall tasks on the nation’s to-do list, one can only hope that Trump avoids his I-been-hurt-by-what-say tendency and gets about completing items on that to-do list – as along as one or more of them do not involve going to war with North Korea, Iran or some other nation.

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 hate to cite Senator Ted Cruz as being smart about anything, but he said something the other day that rings true.

Without legislative accomplishments on health care or tax reform (the latter is still pending), he said Republicans could face a bloodbath in the 2018 mid-term elections.

He’s right and guess what? Democrats know that, too, which is one reason why they will be working to stop any Republican legislative achievements.

They’ll likely contend that Republicans did that to them when they were in charge, so it’s fair that one bad turn deserves another bad turn.

Think about that. Getting even never ends.

Which is one reason why Congress can never get anything done.

Things only got worse this week when President Donald Trump signed an executive order eliminating cost-sharing subsidies that helped low- and moderate-income Americans afford health insurance. About 50,000 eligible Oregonians, for example, stood to lose about $48 million a year in federal assistance.

ObamaCare was a new federal entitlement, which is almost impossible to remove or limit and it was a bad piece of legislation when it was passed seven years ago without one Republican vote.  But Trump’s action smacks of the get-even mentality.

Worse, Democrats were incensed and said they will hold Trump and the Republicans hostage when the time comes later this year and eearly next to try to avoid a government shutdown.

As an aside, last Friday Oregon insurance regulators said they had figured out a way to increase a different federal health insurance subsidy – premium assistance payments — that could more than cover the loss of the cost-sharing payments for many Oregonians.

And, at the same time, despite that development, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum says she will join a lawsuit to prevent Trump’s plan from hurting low-income Oregonians. The other states are Kentucky, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois, New York, Washington, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico and Iowa.

So, the back and forth continues, with no end in sight.

The risk is that all of this getting even business makes it look like American democracy doesn’t work anymore. Perhaps true.

From one person in the cheap seats, what’s needed:

• Elected officials of goodwill, good intent and intellectual ability who will rise above partisan politics to produce solid middle-of-the-road results.
• Politicians who will rise above the current motivation, which is always about the next election.
• A president who does not yell and scream at every supposed criticism, but keeps his or her eye on the final, it-benefits-all result.
• Voters who will choose officials who say that, once elected, they’ll work for the common good, not their own next election….and who say their motive will not be to get even in response to any suspected slight.

Too much to expect? Perhaps.

But, unless we find a new way of doing the public’s business, we’ll continue watching our democracy slide into the abyss.

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.

Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote a thoughtful piece this week questioning whether the old standard of being a FACT mattered anymore.

His proposition? No.

Pitts related a story from his past when a reader wouldn’t believe the facts he wrote, then added this about his own perceptions: “That was when I first fully understood that we had entered a new era wherein facts – those things that once settled arguments conclusively – carried all the weight of goose down. These days, you may prove your point to a fare-thee-well, use The New York Times, a study from Harvard, federal statistics, but the skeptical reader will still brush it all aside like a blurry Polaroid of Bigfoot.”

Pitts says he is not sure “truth is something all of us value.”

He points to such examples of so-called truth as these:

• Michelle Obama is a transvestite? Sure.
• The military plans to conquer Texas? Okey-dokey.
• Vaccines cause autism? Well, all righty, then.
• Hillary Clinton is running a child molestation ring? OK. Out of a pizza joint? Why not?

“That’s just a sampling of the crazy that has gained purchase in American minds. So while it’s fine to engage today’s news consumers, I think our long-term salvation lies in their kids, in teaching them the lost art of critical thinking. That should be a priority in our schools. Because the status quo — facts-free ignorance — is unsustainable.

“Yes, there is always room for improvement in how news media do their jobs. But it is important to understand that the disconnect media face does not stem from failure to report the facts. Rather, it stems from some people’s failure to want them.”

In all of this, I believe one of culprits is social media, for all of its potential benefits. When social media posts pervade society, as they now do, many consumers believe what they read, such as the crazy examples above.

They don’t exhibit the critical thinking to work to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Beyond Pitts’ point about educating kids in the art of critical thinking, I propose several “don’ts:”

1. Don’t rely on just one source for getting and assessing information.

In one example, which affects my daily life, I make sure to read the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, not to presume that facts lie expressly in one direction, but, rather, to assess viewpoints from both the right and the left.

In your own world, rely on multiple sources before you make decisions about what you think.

2. Don’t assume that you automatically have or know all the facts.

It’s easy for all of us to assume that we know what’s true and that we have all the answers. But, I say, test your views in discussions with others, not just those friends and neighbors whom you suspect may agree with you.

3. Don’t jump to quick conclusions based on what you read or hear.

We all have a tendency to want conclusions, to want clarity in our lives amidst all of the confusion and noise. But, it makes more sense to avoid quick decisions and test your emerging views with others whom you trust.

I have tried this example in such areas as (1) health care policy (where I spent 25 years representing a major health provider in the Northwest) and (2) political contributions in state and federal races.

On the former, I have learned a lot from my long-time partner, Gary Conkling, still the president of the firm he and I founded, CFM Strategic Communications. He challenged me to think about current health care issues from a different perspective than just my own.

In another case, one of my golfing buddies, Kevin Turner, has prompted me to think again about the Citizens’ United federal court case, which enables political contributions from business interests. Kevin’s comments to me are still resonating – and that’s good because contemplation is one aspect of critical thinking.

In neither of the above cases, did the conversations produce final “fact” conclusions on my part, but they did prompt me to avoid jumping to conclusions.

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.

This department, one of two I direct (the second is the Department of Pet Peeves), is open again for business. It has been closed for several weeks as I waited for my laptop to be released from the repair shop.

Operating these days without a laptop? Tough.

So, these quotes, with my comments:

From the WSJ editorial page:  “The Little Sisters still need relief in court, which the new rule should make easier, but the regulatory change will launch a crush of new lawsuits from groups like the ACLU. That so many resources in government and so much litigation are necessary to allow nuns to practice their faith is a testament to the toxic identity politics that corrodes American life.”

Comment: Protecting religious freedom should be a priority for Congress and the Presidential Administration. But, when Democrats were in charge, they did not fear to infringe on that freedom. Now, it appears those now in charge are returning to a more balanced regulatory approach.

And, know this, which I report based on my 25 years as a lobbyist representing, among others, Providence Health System, a health care company, including an insurance arm, with a dotted-line affiliation with the Catholic Church. That insurer and all others domiciled in Oregon cover contraception, not because some in the State House thought it was a good political idea, so passed a law, but, rather, because it was good health care business.

From the WSJ letter to the editor column:  “Instead of paying players, take away the bloated college recruiting budgets and the labyrinthine recruiting rules for those sports. Players who want to earn an education and play sports will find the right school as they used to without the lure and corruption caused by the interface with big-time sports. Those who really don’t want to go to college should go to the new minor leagues and get paid. The colleges and the players will be the better for it.”

Comment: Though I am a sports fan, this letter writer makes a few good points about the excesses of college sports. One wonders when reason will return.

From the WSJ editorial page:  “…repealing the regulatory overreach of the Obama Administration is the first crucial step that is already paying dividends in less economic uncertainty and more confidence in the reliability of the future electric grid.”

Comment: This quote relates to the plan by Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt to do away with an Obama Administration excess, imposing a so-called “clean power plan,” without both-sides processes to produce a reasonable plan. I say it’s about time reason and balanced prevailed in environmental law and regulation – and Pruitt is making a decent start on the goal.

From my friend on the golf course over the weekend:  “How do you feel about getting rid of Citizen’s United, the ruling in the case that gives one person the ability to buy a result in the political process?”

Comment: This friend was serious in his question, and so was I in my response. From my view, Citizens’ United could go away (it protects the right of businesses to invest in politics) IF unions, especially public employee unions, were also barred from making huge political contributions. Again, balance should be the goal.

From former U.S Senator Phil Gramm, now with the American Enterprise Institute:  “Given that the top 10 per cent of income earners in America pay more than 71 per cent of federal income taxes and do most of the saving, investing and innovating that fuel America’s economic growth, it’s hardly surprising that a tax reform proposal to stimulate growth would reduce the marginal tax rates of high-income Americans. What is astonishing, however, is the difficulty advocates of tax reform seem to have in defending their proposal against the attack that it benefits the rich.”

Comment: Gramm was a solid senator who practiced his politics from the middle. In this piece, he makes good points about the reality of tax reform and fallacy of just taxing the so-called “rich,” which is what Democrats want. I wish for the good old days of Ronald Reagan when tax cuts fueled economic growth, thus money for the U.S. Treasury.

From Michael Gerson writing in the Washington Post:  “All of us who interpret events for a living look into the abyss of tragedy and tend to see reasons for what brings us comfort. For some, it is passage of a law. For others, support for a religious or philosophic belief. The alternative, after all, is impotent silence. Some of these insights from the abyss may be profoundly true. But they are mainly about us.

“What matters more is the grief and loss of families, and the defiant remembering of each life. This will be the proper focus of the next few days.  That said, I do come at these events from a religious perspective, as some of the victims surely did, and as some of their loved ones surely do. The Christian faith involves a whisper from beyond time that death, while horrible, is not final — that the affirmations of the creeds and the inscriptions on tombstones are not lies. And for many, this hope is a barrier against despair.

“Yet faith also encompasses something deeper and more difficult — what theologian Jurgen Moltmann has called “God’s terrible silence.” In that silence, only the scarred God, the weak and victimized God, the God of the cross seems to communicate. Not in words, but in a shocking example of lonely suffering. Christians turn to a God who once felt godforsaken, as all of us may feel in the nightmare of loss.”

Comment: No more needs to be said or written.

From Leonard Pitts in the Miami Herald: “Donald John Trump is a man whose cognitive and moral deficits would, in a sane country, render him unfit to clean toilets at a reasonably respectable strip club. But he became president. And as Ta-Nehisi Coates argues in the new issue of The Atlantic, he was elected largely because of his racism – not despite it – having run on an implicit promise to restore white primacy after eight years of the black interloper Obama.”

Comment: Again, no more needs to be said or written.

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.

Those of us who have watched the health care debate in Congress may be glad that it appears to be over.

But is it?

There have been name-calling and recriminations that don’t reflect well on the ability of those in Congress or the Presidential Administration to govern this country. That could mean that nothing will happen to improve health care policy.

The bad news started when the Obama Administration and Congress, then under control of the Democrats, imposed what came to be called ObamaCare, without one Republican vote.

There are those who forget that ignominious start as they have watched Republicans, now in charge of Congress and the Administration, commit the same mistakes made by the Democrats – a Republican plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare without one D vote.

If you want a democracy to work, this is not the way to achieve it.

Better if smart minds in Congress – yes, there are some on both sides of the aisle – would set aside differences, get into a room with a circular table and design a new health care system for this country.

One reason this would be difficult is that ObamaCare has become a new federal entitlement. People who receive care under a nearly unworkable system want to preserve that care. So any change prompts horror stories about people who would lose what they now have under this federal dispensation.

But, I say set that aside and design a new and better, middle-ground system.

For my part, I always have maintained that the best first step would be to require everyone to buy health insurance just as we require every driver to buy automobile insurance. Such a mandate might not fare well in Congress, but it would be a beneficial first step to real reform, giving everyone a stake in the outcome.

Many other tenets of reform could follow, but again for my part, I am more interested for now in the process, not the product. Get both sides in a room, use experts and come up with middle ground proposals.

Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and author of “Restoring Quality Health Care: A Six Point Plan for Comprehensive Reform at Lower Cost” ( Hoover Press, 2016), wrote a thoughtful piece in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago to set out three examples of policies that could be part of any new plan – if one actually can be developed by a Congress that tends now to be focusing on tax reform, not health care.

Here is a summary of Mr. Atlas’ suggestions:

• First, equip consumers to consider prices.

“Critics always claim this is unrealistic: Are you supposed to shop around from the back of the ambulance? But emergency care represents only 6% of health expenditures. For privately insured adults under 65, almost 60% of spending is on elective outpatient care. Likewise, nearly 60% of Medicaid money goes to outpatient care. For the top 1% of spenders—a group responsible for more than a quarter of all health expenditures—a full 45% is outpatient. Giving consumers an incentive to consider price when seeking such care would make a huge difference.

“ObamaCare moved in the opposite direction, shielding consumers from having to care about prices. Its broad coverage requirements and misguided subsidies encouraged bloated insurance policies, furthering the misguided idea that the purpose of coverage is to minimize out-of-pocket costs. When the insurer picks up nearly the entire tab, patients have little reason to consider costs, and doctors don’t need to compete on price.”

• Second, work strategically to increase the supply of medical services to stimulate competition.

“In large part, this means deregulation. Lawmakers should remove outmoded scope-of-practice limits on qualified nurse practitioners and physician assistants. That would enable them to staff private clinics that would provide cheaper primary care, including vaccinations, blood-pressure checks, and common prescriptions. In a 2011 review, 88% of visits to retail clinics involved simple care, which was provided 30% to 40% cheaper than at a physician’s office, while keeping patients highly satisfied.”

• Third, introduce the right incentives into the tax code.

“Today employees aren’t taxed on the value of their health benefits—and there is no limit to that exclusion. This creates harmful, counterproductive incentives. It encourages higher demand for care and minimizes concerns about cost.

“Similarly, ObamaCare’s premium subsidies and the tax credits proposed by Republicans artificially prop up high insurance premiums for bloated coverage that minimizes out-of-pocket payments. This prevents patients from caring about the bill, which reduces the incentives for doctors and hospitals to compete on price. If health-care deductions are maintained, the tax code should cap them and limit eligibility to HSA contributions and catastrophic premiums.”

Are these critical spokes in the health care wheel? Perhaps.

But, at least this indicates that there are steps worth considering before we end up with a single payer system, which is the next step liberals and the Democrats want for this country.

It may sound good, but it also would drain the federal treasury without injecting any of the kind of health care disciplines listed above.