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 blog headline above also was the headline in a piece in the Washington Post by columnist Eugene Robinson.

As good a writer as Robinson – and he does know how to use words well – he is not one of my favorite columnists.

Still, in a Washington Post piece, he succeeds by going after President Donald Trump as a master of ‘ignorance on top of ignorance,’ even if he, Trump, utters only a few words.

He displayed his ignorance on several occaisons as he toured Europe, including the United Kingdom, over the last few days.

I paid a bit of attention to this because, coincidentally, I was in Europe around the same time as Trump was, though never – fortunately for me — in the same place. As the day of D-Day dawned, June 6, my wife and I were on the way home after a 10-day river cruise down the Danube.

So, upon my return home, I reviewed a few of the comments about Trump, including those from Robinson, as news coverage of Trump’s visit to a D-Day site in the area of Normandy dominated newspaper space and air waves.

To be fair, it could be contended that Trump did well, for a change, when he made this comments at a commemoration of the D-Day Invasion of Europe by allied forces in the start of ridding the world of one of its most deadly despots, Adolph Hitler.

According to the New York Times, standing on a sun-drenched bluff in Colleville-Sur-Mer, France, overlooking the Normandy beaches (an estimated 10,000 soldiers sacrificed themselves to a savage fusillade of gunfire thus opening the way for Europe’s liberation in 1944), Trump declared, “We are gathered here on freedom’s altar.”

Seventy-five years after the D-Day invasion, the president, who has called into question America’s alliances around the world — including with countries that fought with the United States in Normandy — pledged fidelity to friendships “forged in the heat of battle, tested in the trials of war, and proven in the blessings of peace.”

It was Trump’s only reference to the importance of the Atlantic alliance, in a speech that dwelled, probably appropriately, on the service of D-Day’s American veterans. Dozens of them were seated behind him overlooking the white grave markers of fallen comrades, and Omaha Beach beyond.

Speaking gravely, with few of the ad-libs that usually pepper his speeches, Trump recounted stories of heroism and suffering, often in graphic terms. The veterans not only had vanquished Nazi tyranny, he said, but built the American century.

“To the men who sit behind me and to the boys who rest in the field before me,” Trump said, “your example will never, ever grow old, your legend will never tire, your spirit — brave, unyielding and true — will never die.

“To all of our friends and partners: Our cherished alliance was forged in the heat of battle, tested in the trials of war and proven in the blessings of peace. Our bond is unbreakable.”

Of course, Trump didn’t stop there.

As solid as his comments were about the D-Day, he went beyond them to violate inter-country norms by advocating for a premier candidate – Boris Johnson – to replace the outgoing Theresa May.

He also met with Prince Charles to hear the prince advocate for international action to control climate change.

Here is what columnist Robinson wrote:

“It is not unfair to point out that President Trump, on many important subjects, is just an ignoramus.

“A vivid illustration of this unfortunate fact came this week in London, when it was revealed that Prince Charles, a knowledgeable environmentalist, had tried to educate the president on climate change — and utterly failed.

“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” Trump told the ‘Good Morning Britain’ program. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because, with extreme weather, you can’t miss.”

“Good Lord,” Robinson wrote, “it’s breathtaking that anyone could pack so much ignorance into so few words.”

Robinson also wrote tariffs: “Who bears the cost of tariffs is another topic about which Trump has views that are both unshakably settled and spectacularly wrong.

“China is paying the tariffs he imposed, Trump claims. Companies in Mexico will pay the tariffs he threatens, he promises. Yet, that simply is not how tariffs work.

“Tariffs are taxes, paid by the U.S. firms that import Chinese, Mexican and other foreign products. Those companies pass along those costs to American consumers, in the form of higher prices for foreign-made merchandise. In other words, the money that Trump claims is flowing into the treasury doesn’t come from Beijing or Mexico City. It comes out of your pocket and mine.”

Robinson avers that “the president is often wrong but never in doubt, a know-it-all on subjects about which he knows nothing. He is not, for example, any kind of expert on horse racing. Yet when Maximum Security was disqualified in last month’s Kentucky Derby, Trump immediately sent out an authoritative-sounding tweet:

“The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one. It was a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby – not even close!”

Political correctness? About a horse? “What’s wrong with the man,” Robinson asks.

“Even more dangerous than Trump’s ignorance is the near-impossibility of changing his mind about certain things. It’s one thing to stick to one’s guns. It’s another thing to stubbornly resist fact and reason — especially when the stakes are so high.”

I have developed in recent years my own list of words to describe Trump, most of them of the derisive type, which he richly deserves, as he believes that what he says illustrates, which is far from the truth.

I won’t list my words here, but Robinson goes one better by saying that “only Trump can pack this much ignorance into a few words.”

I wish I would have thought to write or utter those words.