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 the departments I run with a free hand to do what I want to do, which means that, like Trump, I am a dictator. Of course, my dictatorship covers far smaller turf than Trump who, as a huge egotist, believes he is always the most important person in the U.S., if not the world.

So, he says he is above the law, even willing to consider pardoning himself if he is charged with any crime.

Oh well! That is the pivot for another blog at a later time.

Meanwhile, here are more quotes worth remembering.

From Joe Scarborough in the Washington Post:  “Even after his calling for a Muslim ban in 2015, professing ignorance of former Ku Kluz Klan leader David Duke in 2016, defending white supremacists in 2017, and calling out Hispanic ‘breeding’ in April, Trump still enjoys steadfast support among most Capitol Hill Republicans.

“…For starters, they can point to Trump’s conservative judicial nominees beyond Neil Gorsuch as cause for celebration. But their talking points can also include massive tax cuts, a bigger military budget, regulatory reform and the gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency, gutting the Paris climate accords, scrapping of the Iran nuclear deal, undermining Obamacare, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, attacking federal employee unions, and promoting extreme immigration policies. Add to that the mocking of political correctness and identity politics, and you have a platform sure to inspire the activists who drive today’s Republican Party.”

Comment: Republicans on Capital Hill have been loathe to go against Trump, but the risk is that, in supporting Trump, they appear to support all of his over-the-top rhetoric. But, as Scarborough explains above, Trump has managed – who knows how – to create a decent conservative policy agenda.

From Washington Post White House reporters and editors:  “The result: A White House solar system in which the president functions as the sun and his aides and advisers circle around him, but with no clear lines of orbit. Rudy Giuliani, for instance, weighed in during a recent interview with The Washington Post on a topic totally outside his Russia-investigation purview: Iran.”

Comment: Again, everything revolves around Trump, at least in his own mind.

I hate to cite him because of his typical left wing dogma, but this from E. J. Dionne in the Washington Post:  “By now, we know that President Trump is a lying demagogue. Because this is not said often enough, he has been allowed to routinize lying and enshrine the vilest forms of divisiveness as a normal part of our politics.  Lies do not deserve deference just because a president tells them.”

Comment: Lying, in the Trump era, has become an art form – and that risks trust in government and many other institutions (see another of my recent blogs).

From former CIA Director John Brennan in the Washington Post:  “The esteem with which I held the presidency was dealt a serious blow when Donald Trump took office. Almost immediately, I began to see a startling aberration from the remarkable, though human, presidents I had served. Mr. Trump’s lifelong preoccupation with aggrandizing himself seemed to intensify in office, and he quickly leveraged his 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address and his Twitter handle to burnish his brand and misrepresent reality.

“Presidents throughout the years have differed in their approaches to policy, based on political platforms, ideologies and individual beliefs. Trump, however, has shown highly abnormal behavior by lying routinely to the American people without compunction, intentionally fueling divisions in our country and actively working to degrade the imperfect but critical institutions that serve us.

“Although appalling, those actions shouldn’t be surprising. As was the case throughout his business and entertainment careers, Trump charts his every move according to a calculus of how it will personally help or hurt him. His strategy is to undercut real, potential and perceived opponents; his focus is to win at all costs, irrespective of truth, ethics, decency and — many would argue — the law. His disparagement of institutions is designed to short-circuit legitimate law enforcement investigations, intelligence assessments and media challenges that threaten his interests. His fear of the special counsel’s work is especially palpable, as is his growing interest in destroying its mandate.”

Comment: Brennan, once a relatively private figure as director of the CIA, is right-on with his criticisms of Trump.

From the Washington Post story about Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s decision to step down as CEO and chairman of the Board, raising speculation that he may seek public office, perhaps the presidency: “It’s not about Starbucks, it’s about the country. What kind of country do we want to live in? For me the answer is very simple. The promise of America will not be achieved if it is only available to those that have the right color of skin or have the right Zip code. We must provide opportunity and aspiration to every single person who is American, and we must see that through the lens of humanity. And this exercise is the beginning of that for Starbucks.”

“Schultz — in letters to employees and remarks at annual shareholder meetings — has for years been honing his own brand of lofty rhetoric that has often sounded hints of a campaign-style stump speech. Speaking before the election in 2016 that would vault Trump into the presidency, Schultz said, ‘I’ve struggled for weeks to find the right words to express the pain I feel about where America is headed and the cloud hanging over the American people. There are moments when I’ve had a hard time recognizing who we are and who we are becoming. We are facing a test not only of our character, but of our morality as a people.’”

Comment: If Schultz continues comments like this and decides to run for president — the Washington Post today says interest in Schultz may wane quickly — I would consider voting for him.