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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 always has struck me as strange, if not worse, when elected officials express disdain for the private sector.

The most recent one to do so is Senator Elizabeth Warren as she runs for president on what often appears to be a far left platform.

Wall Street Journal editorial writers skewered Warren this week by saying this:

“Democrats used to at least try to conceal their contempt for the private economy, but open hostility is now a political tactic. This week’s example is a broadside from Elizabeth Warren on a former Trump Administration official who dared to resume his career after leaving government.

“Warren blasted Scott Gottlieb, who might have thought he was returning to private life when he stepped down as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in the spring. Warren admits that, unlike ‘other administration officials,’ Gottlieb worked ‘to strengthen protections for Americans on issues like transparency and tobacco use.’”

But then, Warren averred, Gottlieb committed the sin, after leaving government, of joining the board of directors of Pfizer Inc.

Warren wrote: “That kind of revolving door influence-peddling smacks of corruption, among other barbs.

Warren says Gottlieb should rectify his mistake and immediately resign from your position as a Pfizer board member. Or else what? Progressives will boycott Lipitor?

I believe elected officials of all stripes should value the private sector, if only because it is the private sector that creates the jobs where the holders of those jobs pay taxes to fund government, including the government the Ds want.

Now, of course, all private sector leaders are not sweetness and light. They make mistakes frequently and should be held to account for those mistakes, either, in the extreme cases, serving time in prison and paying restitution, but also losing stock value when they under-perform.

But, to be made scapegoats by the likes of Warren? No.

An irony is that one of Gottlieb’s signature projects, when he was FDA administrator, was speeding up approvals for generic drugs that compete with branded pharmaceuticals and drive down prices for consumers. He often called out regulatory “shenanigans” by big companies that reduced competition.

Warren cites no evidence that Gottlieb favored Pfizer; her game, reports the WSJ, is innuendo.

None of this is about the merits. Warren, again according to the WSJ, “wants to disqualify anyone from serving in government unless they’re public-interest lawyers or have spent years camping out at progressive (I hate that word when it is used to describe groups that are not interested in progressing in anything but their own agenda) groups like Public Citizen. The outrage over ‘revolving doors’ is absent for, say, Democrats who moved between environmental groups and the Obama Administration.”

To Warren and others of her ilk on the far left, I say, compliment the hard work of the private sector or, at least, if they cannot stomach a compliment, then avoid the politics of corporate destruction, which should be a losing battle politically.

Today, at least on the left, trashing the private sector is assumed to be a winning game.