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 is one of two departments I direct, with full and complete authority to run it as I see fit, which means, in this case, that I decide what quotes to remember.  I also comment on all of the good quotes.  So, here goes.

From a letter from eight tax policy professionals to the U.S. Treasury Secretary on the tax reform proposal in Congress:  “While the overall House and Senate tax plans contain numerous household and business provisions, we focus on the corporate tax changes, returning to other provisions before concluding. A key concept in this context is the ‘user cost of capital,’ which essentially measures the expected cost to firms of making additional investments in equipment.

“A considerable body of economic research concludes that reductions in the user cost of capital raise output in the short and long run. Several of the proposals that have emerged in the current debate are key to lowering the user cost of capital. For example, expensing, which allows firms to deduct the full cost of investment at the time it is made, lowers the user cost of capital relative to depreciation over time.

“A lower corporate tax rate also lowers the user cost of capital, which not only induces U.S. firms to invest more, but also makes it more attractive for both U.S. and foreign multinational corporations to locate investment in the United States.”

Comment:  It’s always tempting, not to mention very natural, to look at federal tax changes through the lens of how the change will affect you as an individual.  But, with this quote, eight tax experts encourage us to look at the beneficial corporate tax changes that will reduce the cost of capital which will, as past experience indicates, lead to economic growth — and we’ll all benefit from that growth.

From a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial:  “The question senators need to ask themselves in the end is whether this tax reform, all things considered, is a net benefit for the country. We think it is—not least because it is a vote of confidence that better policies can restore America’s traditional economic vigor. Democrats and their media friends have given up on that score, concluding that we are doomed to ‘secular stagnation’ and that our politics must devolve into a brawl to divide up the spoils of whatever meager growth we can muster.

“That is not the country we have known and it is an America that would be much diminished and harsher. Republicans need to decide if they still believe America can prosper again, or if it is doomed to the slow growth and stagnant wages of the last 11 years.”

Comment: See above.

From hill.com: Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci defended White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday, saying the administration’s mouthpiece does her best to protect President Trump while also telling the truth. ‘I think she does the best of her ability to tell the truth but also to protect the president,’ Scaramucci told host Chris Cuomo on CNN’s New Day.

Comment: It is possible to argue that Sanders has one of the toughest jobs in Washington, D.C., at least one that is very visible to the general public. It is to defend President Trump while dealing, face-to-face, with a tough and skeptical media, sometimes a cynical media.

I always am interested in how press secretaries conduct themselves because I was one once, no twice – the first time to a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the second time to Oregon’s last Republican governor, Vic Atiyeh.

If you are in such a job, you have to remember all of the audiences that will read or hear your comments. The tendency, then, could be to avoid saying anything by being milquetoast. But the ones who are good at their jobs avoid that tendency, uttering thoughts on behalf of the person for whom they work while being as honest as possible with probing reporters. I say “as honest as possible” because you may be in possession of sensitive or private information which you cannot reveal. At that point, the best and most honest approach, plus the most credible one, is simply to say that you are not at liberty to talk about the subject.

From the WSJ:  “Behind the metaphor of ‘the swamp,’ after all, is the idea, not without justification, that today’s Washington is far removed from government of, by and for the people. In this context, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a good proxy for the beau ideal of modern American progressivism: Appointed bureaucrats, unaccountable to the elected representatives of the people, wield their regulatory authority as a weapon. As if this were not outrageous enough, Ms. English (the person who was named to the top job as her predecessor left) argues the CFPB also has the right to self-perpetuate by the laying of hands on a successor by her predecessor when he leaves.”

Comment:  The CFPB — what? another acronym? — is a rogue agency, at best.  Some officials there apparently believe they are above the law, so they have created what amounts to a separate branch of government not subject to the normal prerogatives of the country’s top elected official, the president.

It’s time for two actions — (1) for the president’s appointee, Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to run the agency, and (2) to do the appropriate deed, which is to get rid of the agency.  Meanwhile, Democrats, as they continue to support the rogue agency, have given President Trump a huge political gift — a chance to assert executive authority over out-of-control Democrats, which, it should be asserted, is one reason he won the presidency in the first place.

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 headline for this blog uses an old saying to make a point – that a dog that can be a man’s best friend.

True enough in my own experience.

More than 13 years ago, we got our Hogan to help me recover from my “episode” – a heart attack on December 1, 2004 from which I was able to recover. Hogan, a miniature poodle, became my walking partner in recovery.

That would last for 13 years until, unfortunately, we had to adjust to a new reality – Hogan was not well, with a brain tumor that complicated his existence. Our answer was to put him down, which was a compassionate decision, though the aftermath was much more difficult for me than I thought it would be.

So, enter Callaway, now an 11-month-old poodle who is taking at least part of the hole left by Hogan’s absence. And I have no doubt that Callaway and I will form – in fact, are forming – a new “man’s best friend” partnership.

All of this was driven home to me this Thanksgiving when, in La Quinta, California for a family celebration, I read a column in the Desert Sun newspaper.

Here are a few excerpts from a piece written by Palm Springs area resident, Frank Furino.

“My day begins with coffee and a newspaper in the early morning and ends with a final check of the news channels before closing my eyes at night. And sadly, of late, for the most part, there’s been little good news.

“From the sexual scandals reverberating from Hollywood to Washington, to the insane notion of a potential nuclear war, to the climate change debate, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes around the world, we seem to be living in a cacophony of calamity.

“Thankfully, in this maelstrom of daily chaos, I stumbled upon some really good news. Owning a dog can save your life.”

I can say the same thing.

According to the National Library of Medicine, the American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health, and a bunch of other credible organizations, a series of clinical tests showed nothing short of a dog lover’s dream, as Mr. Furino put it.

Clinical studies concluded that dog owners were significantly more likely than people who did not own dogs to still be alive one year after a heart attack, regardless of the severity of the attack.

Married couples that owned a dog had significantly lower resting heart rates and blood pressure than those who didn’t.

One study indicated that having your dog in the room lowered heart rates under stress better than blood pressure medication. And a number of studies have shown that people’s heart rate and blood pressure go down when they are petting a dog.

The studies seem so conclusive that the American Heart Association issued a statement declaring that owning a pet, any pet, but particularly a dog, could reduce your risk of heart disease.

Often, Hogan, during his life, used to welcome us back home with barks and bounds. It didn’t matter if we had had a bad day or if, for example, I had blown up on the golf course. Hogan was there for me through thick and thin.

Of course, that kind of love and affection comes at a price.

On a daily basis, Hogan used to make it quite clear that he was the lawful owner of our home, graciously allowing my wife and me to live there and pay the mortgage. He required three squares a day, sufficient water and a warm spot in our bed.

No doubt, Callaway will exert the same kind of prerogatives.

But it’s all worth it. The love and affection you get knows few equals. And, with health benefits, owning a dog will change your life for the better.

We learned this well from our neighbors, John and Rosemary Wood, dog lovers both. They often refer to their pets, Tiger (yes, Tiger Wood) and Tuffy as their “beloved pets.” John and Rosemary – and Tiger and Tuffy — taught us first-hand about the value of pets, including for solace and health.

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.

One of the pieces of good news for me is that we are past Halloween and on to a much more meaningful holiday – Thanksgiving.

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states.

But, it wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

I am glad that President Lincoln took the initiative to proclaim this holiday.

At this time of year, it is traditional, not to mention meaningful, to reflect on what we are thankful for. So, here is my quick list.

• I am very thankful that I had the good sense to ask Nancy Fraser to marry me more than 44 years ago. For whatever set of reasons, she said yes and we have had a great run together.
• I am very thankful for our two children – Eric and Lissy – who have made our lives full and blessed.
• The same can be said of their spouses – Holly and Tim, respectively. If we had been picking spouses for our children, we could not have done better.
• I am very thankful for our three grandchildren – Eric’s and Holly’s Drew and Lissy’s and Tim’s Mason and Kate. What a wonder they are!
• I am very thankful for our beloved pet, Hogan the dog, who went up to heaven about six weeks ago. Now, we have a new beloved dog, Callaway. And, yes, both are “golfing dogs,” based on their names.
• I am very thankful for our church in Salem, Salem Alliance, where we have been faithful members for more than 30 years. The good news about this church is that both brings people to Christ, as well as nurtures them after they make that pivotal decision. I had the privilege of serving as the chair of the Board of Governing Elders for 12 years, a very fulfilling period of service for me.
• I am thankful for all of the friends I have made at Salem Alliance and at “my” golf course, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club. My best friend was the senior pastor at Salem Alliance for a number of years. Our chance to work together made us much like brothers. Further, my friends on the golf course have stuck with me through think and thin over years, including during recovery from what I call “my episode” – a heart attack on December 1, 2004.
• I am thankful for all the friends I made in two professional positions – one as a state government manager and another as a private sector lobbyist.
• And, most of all, I am thankful that, many years ago, I made a personal decision to follow Christ. To say the least, I have not been a perfect follower over the years, but the good news is that God is faithful, being strong at the very point of our weakness.

So, in your sphere, be thankful and call to mind your own reasons to be thankful…not just today on Thanksgiving, but on every other day of the year.

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.

Salem-Keizer School District Superintendent Christy Perry took just the right action this week when she appealed the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) decision to force Salem school athletic teams to travel over the Santiam Pass to play Bend area schools.

I report this as a follow-up to a post I wrote earlier decrying the decision to force students and coaches to make the often hazardous trip over the pass.

It just makes no sense.

In her appeal, Ms. Perry wrote that schools had inadequate time to prepare for the athletic realigning decision, would lose instructional time, and would lose money.

And, according to a story in the Salem Statesman-Journal, Perry did not cite what, for me, is the most telling reason to oppose the realignment – safety, or better put, the lack of it.

Imagine buses traversing the difficult pass in the dead of winter. Even cars with appropriate snow tires have a difficult time.

The OSAA should be ashamed of its realignment decision. Ms. Perry is right to appeal it, but the OSAA is not clear on what the route will be to consider the appeal.

If it is not approved immediately on the face of its solid rationale, I would advise Ms. Perry and the School Board to ignore the ham-handed directive and play sports within Salem-Keizer Schools, perhaps adding Albany area schools to the mix.

That would serve students far better and that, after all, should be the basic purpose of athletics in the first place.

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.

It is time to open the department and – remember – I am the director with full and complete authority to decide what the department will consider and what it won’t consider.

In that way, call me a dictator.

From the Wall Street Journal editorial pages:  “One reason men and women in business are reluctant to go to Washington is the reception accorded Alex Azar Monday after President Trump said he will nominate the former Eli LIlly & Co. executive to lead the Health and Human Services Department.

“Mr. Azar was immediately criticized for, well, knowing too much about health care.

“’It’s a pharma fox to run the HHS henhouse,’ a talking head from Public Citizen told the Washington Post, which headlined the same piece ‘Trump’s pick to lower drug prices is a former pharma executive who raised them.’ It seems that when Mr. Azar was president, Lilly ‘doubled the U.S. list price of its top-selling insulin drug.

“Well, sure, pharma executives are paid by shareholders to make money selling drugs. Profits drive drug innovation, so there wouldn’t be better treatments without profits, which sometimes requires raising prices. Pardon the reality of market economics.”

Comment: Good point. It’s unfortunate that qualifications often don’t matter in public life, especially if the task is to run a major department of government. There is no question but that Azar is qualified. I say good for him, both because he is qualified and because he is taking a risk – again – to work for government when personal attack is what Democrats will do to him when he stands for confirmation. We need qualified persons like him to work for us.

From the Capital Journal column by Gerald Seib in the WSJ:  “So life is good for Democrats. They now have legitimate hopes of winning back control of the House of Representatives next year.  But they still could blow the opportunity.

“That’s true in part because American politics in the last generation has featured a recurring cycle of each party in turn overplaying a good hand. In this case, Democrats can miss their chance by deciding that simply running against an unpopular president is sufficient, and failing to come up with an economic message that recaptures the kinds of voters they lost to Mr. Trump last year.”

Comment: Seib is often right on target and he is again this time. Overplaying a hand is what Republicans and Democrats do when they get in charge. It happens in Washington, D.C. It happens in Salem. When one side overplays, the other responds in kind – and it, the “getting even,” never ends. That’s why it is valid to ask if this country’s democracy is broken, and whether it ever be fixed again.

From Oregonian editorial writers: “Instead voters should look at the long list of commitments they have already made before jumping on the bandwagon of the latest good cause. They should sharply examine measures to see if they address a specific need or are sprawling requests designed to score popularity points. And they should weigh whether the agency seeking the measure is the right steward for such money. Funding every good cause only leaves us less able to fund the ones we absolutely need to.

Comment: Well said from this normal just a-bit–left-of-center newspaper. Voters in the City of Portland and Portland Public School District have approved bond measures that will raise local property taxes. If the measures won because they represented solid investments, fine. But the Oregonian points out that taxpayers cannot fund “every good cause.” A question that is often not asked, but should be, is whether the purpose of a bond measure represents something government should do or not.

From a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal:  “Regarding your editorial Bad Marks for a Good Military: Saying ‘Congress needs to allocate enough money to adequately train sailors’ doesn’t address the core issue of failure. Funding wasn’t the problem; it was, as always, a complete lack of leadership at the highest levels. This episode falls on admirals who wanted a third or fourth star and were eager to compliment a pitifully naive and unprepared new entrant to the presidency who saw the military as a petri dish for social change and was willing to cripple the national defense to that end.

“Yes, the officers and senior NCOs received training, but it was re-focused from bridge command and control to diversity training. Now they can’t run a ship but are fully proficient in diversity issues. Perhaps with a new commander in chief we’ll get our priorities back in line with the brick and mortar of national defense.

Comment: This is an overlooked area – the character of training for those in the military. When it devolves from military and, for the Navy, ‘bridge command and control,’ to diversity, then the military is in trouble. Recent Naval collisions only illustrate the obvious

From Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker: “ Without nearly enough fanfare, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made history this week with a four scant words: “I believe the women.” All across the United States, forks dropped, glasses shattered and knees wobbled as women turned to each other in astonishment. Wait. What? Did he say what I think he said?

Comment: Yes, Senator McConnell made a bit of history with those four words, but it is important to add that they were uttered after investigating the circumstances of candidate Roy Moore’s history.  It was not just an off-the-cuff remark.  That fact makes the McConnell quote even more noteworthy.

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.

On this day, as analysts across the board try to interpret results of elections in Virginia and New Jersey – elections that may portend a wave of Democrat victories in the coming mid-term elections – it is worth looking at more good quotes.

So, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, one of the departments I run as director, is open again.

From Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ): Yelp does not give two hoots about Russia. Yelp’s problem is having to compete with Google in providing online reviews while depending on Google for traffic. News stories incriminating Google and Facebook for transmitting “fake news” are written by reporters whose amour propre is offended by fake news nearly as much as their paychecks are undermined by it. Bottom line: Skepticism is an endlessly useful quality to cultivate.”

Comment: Jenkins’ last sentence is a particularly good one. Skepticism is a solid trait to possess in this day of fake news and other mindless campaigns to win supporters. But should skepticism yield to cynicism? I say no. Stay skeptical.

From WSJ editorial writers:  “Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the defeat by tweeting from Asia that ‘Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for.’ Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!’ “Sometimes Mr. Trump’s comments are so transparently false you wonder if he’s laughing as he writes.”

Comment: For Trump, it’s always about him – all the time. He endorsed Gillespie, but, when Gillespie lost, it was because, Trump says, “he didn’t embrace me.” No, the consensus of many analysts is that Gillespie’s loss amounted to a repudiation of Trump in the minds of Virginia voters.

Daniel Henninger in the WSJ:  “Ed Gillespie is the canary in the mine shaft for Republican politics. We’ll push that further: Virginia is the canary in the mine shaft for all of American politics.

“Years ago, coal miners who worked down amid the dangers of carbon monoxide would keep a caged canary nearby. If the canary looked dead, the miners got out. The big difference for our comparison is that while miners are smart enough to recognize toxic gas, our two political parties are not. The American people are the canaries.”

Comment: I have to confess that, while I heard the canary line before, I didn’t know its derivation. As Henninger described it: “Years ago, coal miners who worked down amid the dangers of carbon monoxide would keep a caged canary nearby. If the canary looked dead, the miners got out. The big difference for our comparison is that, while miners are smart enough to recognize toxic gas, our two political parties are not. The American people are the canaries.” From Henninger, a well-honed image.

More from Henninger:  “For Democrats, political identity is by now well-established as a function of one’s race, gender or sexual self-definition. Refined further, a Democrat is a ‘person of color’ or a ‘woman’ or a ‘transgender’ person. Those who don’t qualify for a category keep mum. From these identities, flow many streams of potential violations, slights and transgressions justifying political action against ‘them.’  The Democrats’ not unreasonable takeaway from Virginia will be that identity politics works, so do more of it.”

Comment: The point is that, so far in this country, “identity politics” works. There is not enough evidence to spot a trend, but the early indications no doubt will not be lost on Democrat strategies heading toward the mid-terms.

Still more from Henninger:  “The Republicans’ political identity, if the media consensus is to be believed, is almost wholly a function of some inchoate white anger also directed at ‘ them.’   Donald Trump won the presidency because he mined white anger at the margins against a different “them” of immigrants and globalization, meaning the whole wide world is arrayed against whatever it means to be a “white male” in 21st-century America.  The Republicans’ logical takeaway from Virginia should be that in competitive election venues their political anger has bigger numbers than your anger.”

Comment: Republicans ought to figure out some other way to build credibility with voters that trying to use just anger. That’s what Trump did in his election, now about a year in the rear-view mirror. Going forward, there should be something other than just anger.

From Michael Gerson in the Washington Post:  “Political commentators are supposed to be somewhat objective and analytical when it comes to tracking trends. In that spirit, I find the polling snapshot of President Trump at one year since his election to be interesting — if ‘interesting’ is defined as a downward spiral of polarization, pettiness and prejudice that threatens the daily functioning and moral standing of the American republic.”

Comment: Gerson used the last phrase in his piece to indicate how far “we” are groveling toward the bottom, sometimes in our conduct individual-to-individual, but surely in our tolerance of politics that heads toward the basement.  Gerson says both parties, Republicans and Democrats, are exhausting themselves, which leads me to opine that it may be time for a third party – one that capitalizes on a move to middle where the best solutions lie anyway.

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.

If you consider what is happening politically in this country, the question in the headline resonates.

Neither the Republicans or the Democrats appear to have the wherewithal to govern effectively.

If governing means the ability to solve pressing societal problems, then neither party can do the job.

If governing means the ability to distinguish between issues that require government intervention and those that don’t, then neither party can do the job.

If governing means the ability of those in high elective office to understand how to disagree agreeably with the nation’s overall interest at heart, then neither party can do the job.

Or, consider President Donald Trump, who, in major surprise, won the nation’s top political job a year ago, though he didn’t take office for a few months. His propensity to revert to his twitter account seemingly every night, sends impossible messages.

It also makes it well-nigh impossible for those who work for him to do their jobs – which, come to think of it, may be just what he wants because, remember, he want all the focus to be on him. How can you work for someone who changes his tune with every tweet?

In a piece in the Wall Street Journal, columnist William Galston put it this way:

“President Trump has gradually discovered the meaning of the oath he swore on Jan. 20, and he doesn’t seem to like it. In the course of an interview on ‘The Larry O’Connor Show’ last week, he said, ‘The saddest thing is that because I’m the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I’m not supposed to be doing the kinds of things that I would love to be doing. And I’m very frustrated by it.’

“Meet James Madison’s Constitution, Mr. President. It is nothing like a family business. It is designed to frustrate you.”

Mr. Galston continues:

“The point of the Constitution is not to do the bidding of any one institution, let alone a single individual. It is to preserve liberty by thwarting tyranny, which Madison defined in Federalist 47 as ‘the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands.’

“The preamble to the Constitution provides a terse statement of the purposes it intends to promote. The body of the document lays out in some detail the institutions through which these purposes may be pursued legitimately. They channel power, and in so doing they limit it.

“These forms matter. In our system, public officials must not only do the right thing; they must do it in the right way. Good intentions that run roughshod over institutional limits are abuses of power.”

So, all parties, both the House the Senate in Congress and the President, are unable to do the job of governing, then what?

Another columnist, Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, got is just right the other day.

“We have reached a moment of intellectual and moral exhaustion for both major political parties. One is dominated by ethnic politics — which a disturbingly strong majority of Republican regulars have found appealing or acceptable. The other is dominated by identity politics — a movement that counts a growing number of Robespierres. Both seem united only in their resentment of the international economic order that America has built and led for 70 years.”

So, what should we wish for? Gerson says “it is a measure of our moment that this (the answer) is not obvious.”

For me, one answer is to form a third party, one that does not practice the Republican art of “ethnic politics” nor practice the Democrat art of “identity politics.”

It would be a party of the middle ground, one that accepts Constitutional norms and looks for what I call the “smart middle.”

Tough to do? Yes.

Possible? Perhaps, given the excesses of the current two party system.

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.

One of the toughest government jobs these days is the one former Army General John Kelly holds in Washington, D.C.

He is chief of staff to a person, President Donald Trump, who has no chief other than his own ego.

So, the media watches Kelly and looks for any misstep in his work. One of those alleged missteps occurred when Kelly, in a Fox News interview, called Confederate General Robert E. Lee an “honorable man.”

He also observed that “men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had made them stand.”

Despite a crescendo of media criticism – how could an official call a slave owner honorable – Kelly got it right. Facts, not perceptions, tell that story.

In a piece for the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, Jay Winik, author of “April 1865” and “1944” and historian-in-residence at the Council on Foreign Relations, did everyone a service by providing a list of facts to buttress the image of Lee, not to mention Kelly’s comments.

Here is the list, with all due credit to Winik, from whom I quote:

• Lee’s lineage was impeccable. His father was Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee III, the celebrated Revolutionary War general and close friend of George Washington. Lee himself descended from two signers of the Declaration of Independence, and his wife, who later became an ardent Confederate, was none other than Mary Custis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and, through adoption, of George Washington himself.
• Lee agonized over whether to fight for the Confederacy. As war loomed, Abraham Lincoln offered him command of the new Union Army, a position he had always coveted. Despite being an avowed Federalist who longed for compromise to save the Union, Lee, like so many others, gave in to the permanency of birth and blood. “I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children,” he wrote a friend, “save in defense of my native state.” Instead he became the commanding general of the Confederate armies, while predicting that the country would pass “through a terrible ordeal.” He was right.
• Still, he was never much of a hater. Like Lincoln, more often than not Lee called the other side “those people,” rather than “the enemy.” Nor was it clear that he loved war itself. “It is well that war is so terrible,” he once said, “or we should grow too fond of it.” With words that could have been uttered by Lincoln, Lee talked of the cruelty of war, how it filled “our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors.”
• Nor was he fond of slavery, once describing it as “a moral and political evil.” True, he did benefit from slavery. But in 1863, one day after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Lee went a step further than Thomas Jefferson ever did and freed his family slaves, fulfilling the wishes of his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis. And in 1865, as the Confederacy stood on the throes of destruction, Lee supported a dramatic measure to put slaves in uniform and train them to fight, which would have effectively emancipated them.
• Upon the conflict’s close, Lee gave a forceful interview to the New York Herald in which he strongly condemned Lincoln’s assassination and claimed that the “best men of the South” had long wanted to see slavery’s end. Later he declared, “I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.”
• Arguably his most powerful statement about race relations came at war’s end in St. Paul’s Church, the congregation of the Richmond elite. To the horror of many of the congregants, a well-dressed black man advanced to take communion, and knelt down at the altar rail. The minister froze, unsure what to do. Lee knelt down next to the black man to partake of the communion with him.
• Finally, Lee’s greatest legacy was not in war, but in peace. Lee went to great pains to heal the bitterness that cleaved the country after Appomattox. When Lee surrendered to Ulysses S.

Winik’s conclusion was that Lee “embodied in countless ways the poignancy and tragedy of Civil War.”

So, it was right for Kelly to compliment Lee. Based on the facts, not the perceptions, of Lee’s life, he was a patriot who opposed slavery even though, for reasons of place and birth n the South, he fought for the Confederacy.

Facts vindicate Kelly.

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.

Under this headline – “OSAA reclassification recommendation makes no sense to valley league” – Salem Statesman-Journal editorial writers got it right the other day.

Making Salem area teams play three high schools in Bend and mandating the reverse will force students to make an often-dangerous trip over the Santiam Pass during the height of winter. It also will squeeze out valuable class time, which ought to be the main purpose of high school.

OSAA is an acronym that stands for Oregon School Activities Association, so I guess the great minds there thought it made sense to mandate the unconscionable trip.

No matter about dangerous driving conditions.

No matter about how much it would cost citizens in Salem and Bend to fund the increased expenses.

No matter about the fact that students would be gone from school for far longer than normal.

So, that’s why I say it was a stupid decision, one that is almost unfathomable to have been made by officials who should have the students’ best interests at heart.

Here’s more detail from the Statesman-Journal:

“The Oregon Schools Activities Association is messing with students’ academic careers. Again.

“The committee wants five of Salem-Keizer’s high schools to participate in athletic and other activities with three Bend schools starting next fall.

“Does no one remember the students who had to be tutored or flunked classes or failed to graduate when the OSAA implemented this same over-the-pass plan more than a decade ago by putting Salem in the same classification as Redmond?

“There are too many parents in the Salem-Keizer area who haven’t forgotten the impact the extra travel then had on their children’s studies. They’re still talking about it.”

So, imagine school buses already lumbering down roads; during snowy days or slowing to a crawl in the darkness of the return trip to avoid ice. The students would arrive back at their high schools late. It could be 11 p.m. or later if a baseball game went into extra innings, for instance. That meant students were pulling 15-hour days, and not all of them did their homework after three hours on the diamond. Imagine valley and high desert teams doing this multiple times per week.

So, it’s time for smarter heads at the OSAA to think again, even if the time for public comment has expired. If nothing else, OSAA officials should keep two principles in mind – the safety of the kids involved in athletics and the fact that athletics should not usurp academics.

As a sports fan, one who has watched his kids and grandkids grow up while combining school and sports, there is a better way to proceed that what the OSAA has chosen.

Our children deserve much better!

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.

After watching the to’ing and fro’ing in the Nation’s Capitol this week, I find myself wishing for a bit of the old order of politics.

That would be the time when Republicans and Democrats would disagree by day on major policy issues, then agree by evening, often over a glass of wine.

It was an illustration of the old political saw: They knew how to disagree agreeably.

No longer.

Now we have one side going after the other as if there was no tomorrow.

Enter the “Russian issue.”

There is ample evidence to suggest that both Republican and Democrat operatives sought dirt from Russians to throw on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Charges against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, plus a guilty plea from George Papadopoulous, are only the first steps down an unclear path being charted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Could the steps lead to Trump’s door? Probably.

Could they lead to Clinton’s door? Who knows?

One commentator I read, perhaps in response to charges that Facebook had posted, probably haphazardly, Russian ads during the presidential campaign, said he couldn’t imagine how Facebook ads could change the character of a national election in this country.

Plus, the commentator raised questions about whether Russia, with all of its internal problems that threaten the reign of Vladimir Putin, could have believed it could skew the U.S. escalation, even as hard as it tried to do so.

Further, Don Levin, a post-doctoral fellow in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie-Mellon University, makes three contentions about Russian interference.

First, he says covert interventions are much less effective than overt ones. “Covert interventions are more limited in the amount of assistance they can provide because of the need for operational secrecy. So in this case, the choice of a covert intervention by Russia weakens its effects.”

Second, Levin says electoral interventions by major powers in U.S. presidential elections have historically been ineffective or counterproductive. “John Adams still won the presidential election of 1796, and the backlash against the intervention led him to gain more Electoral College votes than he lost.

“Likewise, historians who studied later interventions in U.S. elections in 1940, 1948 and 1984 generally concluded that none had any significant effects on these elections.

Third, Levin says that, once interventions have been partly exposed, they are likely to be even less successful than they would have been had they proceeded in secret.

Is Mr. Levin right? Again, who knows ?

My concern is that the current skirmishes in Washington, D.C. shield what should be a spirited debate about tax reform. Not a debate that benefits one party or the other in the prelude to mid-term elections.

But, rather, a debate that focuses on how tax reform would affect taxpayers and businesses in this country.

That’s where our emphasis should be, but I suspect in the coming days and weeks we’ll be seeing more of Russia on our front pages and airwaves than tax reform principles.

Footnote: Speaking of tax reform, editorial from the Wall Street Journal this week contained this sage bit of advice – and this is the kind of debate we should be able to watch in Washington, D.C.

“The GOP tax blueprint released earlier this fall called for an unspecified expansion of the child tax credit, which now is $1,000 a child. But Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee are demanding that the credit “be at least doubled” and apply against payroll taxes. This would be bad tax policy and politics.

“Tax credits for kids—what’s not to like? The answer is obvious if you step back and consider the purpose of a tax code. The goal should be to raise the money needed to fund the government with the least amount of economic distortion.

“The simplest system is also the fairest and the most efficient. Politicians who want to promote social policies can do so via spending or regulation, but when they lace the tax code with special favors they force tax rates higher and reduce economic growth. To benefit from these tax favors, Americans must also behave in ways that politicians require—like buying a Tesla—but are not the best for the economy. The point of reform is to return to the first tax principles of raising money with the least amount of political meddling.”