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.

The problem for Senator Warren, as she campaigns for the Democrat nomination for president, is that she can’t sell her health care plan.

The more potential voters know about her plan to give all of health care to bureaucrats the more they don’t like it.

It’s one thing to call for a government role in health care. It’s another to say only government will play a role.

No private health care.

If you like your health insurer, you can’t keep it. If you like your physician, government will tell whether you can keep the relationship or not.

Health care is an issue of national concern and a country as capable and diverse as the U.S. should be able to design a better system, one that includes a reasonable role for government AND a reasonable role for the private sector.

All of this came to the fore this morning when the Wall Street Journal published this:

“Buttigieg’s (Pete Buttigieg, the small town Indiana mayor who is running for the D nomination) rise has been fueled in part by voter concerns about the health plan advanced by presidential campaign rival Senator Elizabeth Warren.

“Those concerns may have room to grow. Shane Goldmacher, Sarah Kliff and Thomas Kaplan write in the New York Times that Warren is still struggling to market government-run health care:

…speaking to reporters the day after unveiling her Medicare for All financing plan, she uncharacteristically stumbled over the specifics, insisting, incorrectly, that only billionaires would see their taxes go up.”

Meanwhile, the Times reports, the United Kingdom’s government-run health plan hardly argues for a similar experiment in the U.S. Today Helen Puttick reports in the Times of London on the lengths patients of the National Health Service (NHS) must go to find a safe operating room:

“An NHS operating theatre has been mothballed because of staff shortages and patients having surgery are being taken to a mobile theatre run by a private company.

“NHS Scotland is paying to transport people daily almost 40 miles from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary to have their operations at the temporary unit. One of the theatres in the hospital’s general surgery suite has been shut because the health board cannot find enough trained nurses to safely provide treatment there.”

In a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal wrote this:

“Americans who want a preview of coming attractions under Medicare for All should take a look at the annual ‘winter crisis’ at Britain’s NHS that is starting early this year. Data released Thursday showed the worst waiting times in 15 years in English emergency rooms. Hang onto your warm winter hats.

“The NHS managed to treat only 83.6 per cent of emergency-room patients within four hours in October, compared to 89.1 per cent a year earlier and well short of the government’s target of 95 per cent.”

As I have posted previously in this blog, I had a recent experience with health care in the U.K. It wasn’t all good. It wasn’t all bad.

In the end, the service was effective, but it took quite awhile for it to be provided.

Is the service I receive in the U.S. any better? Well, I know the U.S. system better, having been a health care lobbyist for the better part of 25 years, so I know how to work my way through the system, plus the service locations are within easy geographic reach, not across the Atlantic.

For me, the bottom line is that the U.S. ought to be smart enough to find the best of health care in the U.K. and the best of health care in the U.S., merge them, and provide a better system for all Americans.

But it appears that today’s version of politics – going overboard from the left and just saying “no” from the right – will not produce a result worth preserving.

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.

Long-time Democrat activist Rahm Emanuel – once a White House chief of staff, as well as mayor of Chicago – said something insightful on a news/commentary show over the weekend.

I don’t usually cite Emanuel as worth quoting, but here is what he said:

“What motivates Donald Trump more than anything is a fear of being exposed.”

Stop and think about that for moment. That’s why, for instance, Trump continues to oppose any effort to see his tax returns. He doesn’t want to be exposed as someone who does not pay his full share, despite his net worth – at least net worth he suggests he has.

It also is why he blanches at any turn when it appears he might have to unveil aspects of his real conduct, no matter the subject.  And it is why he doesn’t want to be exposed as a fraud.

I lived through the Watergate debacle many years ago, and, while it was a very difficult time in this country’s history, it also had the effect of reinforcing ethics and honesty in government.

Now I venture to say I hope the current impeachment process produces the same result in relation to Trump – exposing his every criminal or nearly-criminal act.

As the Watergate investigation moved forward, we learned more and more about President Richard Nixon’s action to authorize the break-in at Democrat headquarters, plus to cover it up.

And, the more we knew about Nixon’s efforts, the more it weakened his ability to withstand the impeachment process. He resigned. For the good the country.

Will the same happen to Trump?

I suspect that, if the current impeachment process reveals “high crimes and misdemeanors,” Trump will just balk, calling everyone who opposes him part of an effort to overturn the 2016 election. He would try not to leave the presidency for the good of the country, even if convicted.

Meanwhile, as the impeachment process moves forward, Trump will try to influence media coverage with endless tweets and over-the-top rhetoric designed to show, again, that he thinks he always is the smartest person in the room and doesn’t have to answer to anyone, including the Constitution, Congress or the American people.

Late last week, his rhetoric may have caught up with him, at least for one news cycle (if there is a cycle any longer). It was when he rolled out a tweet designed to intimidate impeachment witness, Marie Yovanovitch, at the same moment as she was testifying. That became the story of the day, prompting even Republicans to criticize Trump.

Trouble is, many Americans still support Trump, no matter what he says or does. To Trumpians, he can do no wrong, no matter how wrong he is.

In a piece in the Washington Post this weekend, James Robenalt, an attorney in Cleveland and the author of four non-fiction books, including “January 1973: Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Change America Forever,” posits that the current impeachment process “won’t matter as much as Watergate’s.”

He adds: “Since we have the transcript of the Ukraine call, the testimony may seem anti-climactic.”

Then he recalls: “When John Dean testified in June 1973 before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities — for a full week — the nation was riveted. Here was a young former counsel to the president, telling the country that he had warned Richard Nixon that ‘there was a cancer growing on the presidency’ and that ‘if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it.’ All three major networks carried his testimony. But for all the drama of Dean’s appearance, it did not push the public to conclude that Nixon had to go.”

It took a year of further Watergate revelations, culminating in the court-ordered release of a tape on which Nixon was heard ordering his chief of staff to tell the CIA to kill the FBI’s Watergate investigation, to push public opinion solidly toward impeachment.

So, I hope that the more we learn about Trump’s conduct, the more pressure will build toward conviction. That won’t occur unless Republicans in the Senate develop some political backbone (as I wrote in a blog yesterday) to oppose Trump.

Consider what has happened so far to Trump acolytes:

• Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is in prison after being found guilty on charges including fraud.
• Manafort’s deputy on the campaign, his longtime business partner Rick Gates, is awaiting sentencing after agreeing to cooperate with investigators and pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge. Gates was also part of Trump’s inaugural team.
• Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn is awaiting sentencing for having lied to federal investigators.
• Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen is in prison, serving time for charges including lying to Congress, fraud and campaign finance violations — charges in which he implicated Trump.
• A foreign policy adviser on Trump’s campaign, George Papadopoulos, was convicted of lying to investigators and served time in prison.
• Roger Stone has been convicted by a jury of lying to Congress, apparently to protect Trump as part of the Russia probe and is now awaiting sentencing.

Will Trump follow? As the standard phrase goes, only time will tell.

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And this footnote: I have been involved for several months as a volunteer on a committee formed by Oregon Common Cause to consider ways to promote ethics as a factor in current public service, as well as in the minds of voters. Since Watergate, ethics has receded as a factor in public life. Too bad. A commitment to solid civics, not to mention American democracy, requires a commitment to honesty, ethics, and integrity. All too often, they are missing.

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.

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Preamble: As I was writing this blog, I had the good fortune to listen to a public television presentation of Neil Diamond, one of my favorite singers still active in America. His final song – Coming to America – calls to a mind a different time in America, one where we valued people as people…and immigrants adding to the value and texture of our country. To our shame, that is no longer the case, at least for some, as Donald Trump has led us to hate others with whom we disagree. Too bad – and that perspective adds to this blog about the timidity of Republicans to oppose Trump.

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I wonder how long it will take Republicans to reject President Donald Trump and label him to be what he is, which is the worst president in U.S. history, one guilty of substantial misdeeds, some of them criminal, some of them creating a substantial security risk for the country.

It will take a dose of political courage to do the deed. But it needs to be done for the sake of our future.

All of this came to mind this weekend as I read a piece by Peter Wehner, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Egan Visiting Professor at Duke University.

Under the headline, “The Exposure of the Republican Party,” he wrote this, referring to facts emerging from the current impeachment process:

“That the president acted the way he did should surprise exactly no one, given his disordered personality and Nietzschean ethic, his pathological lying and brutishness and bullying, and his history of personal and professional depravity.  The president is a deeply damaged human being—and therefore a deeply dangerous president.

“But what was on display on Capitol Hill was not simply an impeachment inquiry into an unscrupulous president; it was the ongoing, deepening complicity and corruption of the party he leads.

“What makes the Trump era so unusual isn’t partisanship and political tribalism, which have been around for much of human existence. It is the degree to which the transgressive nature of Trump—his willingness to go places no other president has gone, to say and do things that no president before him has done—has exposed the Republican Party.

“There is hardly a pretense anymore regarding what the party, and the right-wing media complex, are doing. They are driven by a single, all-consuming commitment: Defend Donald Trump at all costs. That is the end they seek, and they will pursue virtually any means necessary to achieve it. This from the party that once said it stood for objective truth, for honor and integrity, and against moral relativism.”

I continue to wonder when Republicans will display backbone to oppose Trump, even if they believe it will come at the expense of their own power.

Better, I say, to act within ethics, honesty and principle than to cave in reflexively to a reckless president.

The early days of public hearings into impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump included explosive revelations by various State Department officials who tied Trump directly to asking Ukraine to investigate Democrat presidential candidate. From Bill Taylor to Donald Kent, to Marie Yovanovitch, they said Trump’s conduct risked the reputation of U.S. foreign service officers in favor of thugs and corruption.

More from Wehner: “But as damaging as Bill Taylor’s testimony proved, it was merely another massive boulder in the avalanche of evidence against the president. We are well beyond the point that any disinterested person can deny that the president abused his power and acted in a corrupt manner, in ways the American founders explicitly warned against.

“But what was on display on Capitol Hill on was not simply an impeachment inquiry into an unscrupulous president; it was the ongoing, deepening complicity and corruption of the party he leads.

“We are facing a profound political crisis. What the Republican Party is saying and signaling isn’t simply that rationality and truth are subordinate to partisanship; it is that they have to be obliterated for the sake of partisanship and the survival of the Trump presidency. As best I can tell, based on some fairly intense interactions with Trump supporters, there is no limiting principle—almost nothing he can do—that will forfeit their support. Members of Congress clearly believe Trump is all that stands between them and the loss of power, while many Trump voters believe the president is all that stands between them and national ruin. In either case, it has led them into the shadowlands.”

Wehner says he is still a conservative and has devoted a large part of his life to the Republican Party – at least the former party. Therefore, he avers, it is painful to watch all of this unfold for a political party that used to be led by a credible, though imperfect, stalwart like Ronald Reagan.

“The Republican Party under Trump is a party built largely on lies, and it is now maintained by politicians and supporters who are willing to live within the lie.”

Surely, part of Republicanism is to oppose the left of the Democrat party which wants to make America all about government, putting bureaucrats in charge of nearly every area of life – health care, education, infrastructure, debt – all the while imposing huge tax increases that cannot be sustained.

I say this:

• It’s time for Republicans to stand up against Trump as a matter of commitment to principle, adding their voices to Senator Mitt Romney from Utah.
• It’s time for Republicans to find a credible alternative to Trump who can oppose the machinations of the far left.
• It’s time for Democrats to identify a candidate who has a chance to beat Trump – if, that is, he survives impeachment.
• It’s time for all Americans to support solutions from the center – the smart middle, as I like to call it – instead of opting for disagreement and dissension.

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.

Is what is occurring in Washington, D.C. – an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Donald Trump – warranted or not?

There are multiple ways to answer that question.

My answer — if I go to the length of commenting on a process in which I am not involved directly and which is occurring more than 3,000 miles from where I live – is simple: Yes.

I say that because what I hope occurs is what happened when Congress subjected then-President Richard Nixon to an impeachment process after the Watergate break-in.

Then, the more we learned about Nixon’s actions, the more it showed how he broke the law even as he contended that he did nothing wrong. So, I hope the more we learn about Trump’s conduct the more it will be suspect and worthy of conviction, thus removal from office.

Far-fetched? Yes, in our increasingly tinged and over-the-top version of politics these days, especially as Republicans work to defend “their leader.”

Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, put it this way after the first day of public impeachment hearings in the U.S. House:

“So what else is new? Internal policy battles of this intensity (the one dealing with what Trump and his administration do and when and why did they do it) are a constant of government life.

“Other than dragging in the Bidens, this is hardly different from a host of similar Trumpian foreign-policy interventions: His decision after the first summit with Kim Jong Un to reduce military exercises with South Korea; the 2018 decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, which caused Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign; his decision in 2017 to impose tariffs on virtually all the major U.S. trading partners, no matter the effect on domestic farmers and businesses; his decision last month to pull U.S. forces in northern Syria away from the Kurds, who he said ‘didn’t help us with Normandy.’”

“My own favorite of stillborn Trump foreign-policy ideas,” Henninger continues “was his tweet, days before the anniversary of 9/11 this year: “Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday.” The Taliban at Camp David—now that would have been impeachable.”

Just consider, for a moment, Trump’s incredibly stupid actions as president. Impeach him, I say, for his stupidity, which puts America in jeopardy.

Henninger uses his words to contend that, at most, Trump and his administration should have been subjected to oversight hearings in Congress, not an impeachment process.

Add to that the president’s abhorrent personal conduct in office — his dishonesty, his intention never to cooperate with Congressional oversight, his failure to exhibit any of the leadership credentials of a president.

The time for impeachment had arrived.

Consider this from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal this morning:

“There was something grave in it (the first day of impeachment hearings), and a kind of reckoning. This was due to the dignity and professionalism of the career diplomats who calmly and methodically told what they had seen and experienced. They were believable. It didn’t feel embarrassing to have faith in them.

“Republicans on the panel didn’t know what to do. They know what this story is, and I believe they absolutely know the president muscled an ally, holding public money over its head to get a personal political favor. But they’re his party, they didn’t want to look weak, they had to show the base they had his back. In their interruptions and chaos-strewing they attempted to do some of what the Democrats did during the Kavanaugh hearings…”

Noonan’s point – career, credible, experienced public servants telling Congress and America what they know about Trump – is worth repeating. For it may foretell what I hope the impeachment process produces, which is evidence that Trump should not sit in the Oval Office or be anywhere near the levers of presidential power.

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.

Two of my friends recently tussled with my post about whether official golf rules allow for use of what I’ll call a “mulligan” – the concept in golf that allows a do-over after a shot.

Most golfers would answer “no” to such a question.

First, the fact that I focus on this illustrates that I have nothing better to do than ruminate on golf rules – and, I post this halfway to Palm Springs, California where, yes, golf is on my agenda.

Second, on to the points made by my friends:

• One friend advised me that the word “mulligan” did not appear in the official golf rule book. True. To defend myself, I used the word only in colloquial fashion and not because it was official. My friend is right, so, from my on, at least in this point, I’ll put the word “mulligan” in quote marks.
• Another friend told me that there was a third occasion in golf rules where a “mulligan” was allowed. It is when a golf ball, hit off the tee or off the ground, disintegrates in flight. Play another ball without penalty.

To recall, I had earlier cited two incidents in golf rules where “mulligans” were allowed.

One occurred recently on the PGA Champions Tour. I player hit a three-foot putt, the ball lipped out of the hole, and came back to hit the player in the foot. The correct procedure was to take a “mulligan.” The player did not do so, hitting the ball where it came to rest and suffered a two-stroke penalty as a result.

The second occasion where a “mulligan” is allowed occurs when a golf ball hits a power line over the course, which tends to occur infrequently. In such a case, there is an automatic “mulligan” – no choice, hit again, no penalty.

See, if you read this post, aren’t you better off for doing so!

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.

The more I know about Elizabeth Warren and her proposed policies, the less I like them.

And I worry that, if she wins the Democrat primary to run for president, she will have the effect of boosting election prospects for Donald Trump. That is, of course, if Trump survives impeachment.

Take from the “rich” and give it to others. That’s exactly what Warren wants to do. Which continues to recall the good quote, which is that “it’s always easy to spend other people’s money.”

Warren envisions big government being responsible for many areas of our lives. No thought of individual responsibility, along with increased commitments from the private sector, including those with money, to increase charitable contributions.

[Is there a role for government in all of this? Absolutely. I am not part of the Republican “we hate government” notion; I just think government and personal responsibility should work together rather than being some kind of either-or deal.]

Witness the following concerns about Warren as expressed by commentators following her on the campaign trail – and, if you notice that many of the quotes below are from the Wall Street Journal, I plead guilty without apology:

* From Andy Kessler in the Wall Street Journal: “Warren told the New England Council last year, ‘I am a capitalist to my bones.’ She then told CNBC, ‘I am a capitalist. Come on. I believe in markets.’ It was almost as if she didn’t believe it herself. Then came the caveat: ‘But only fair markets, markets with rules. Markets without rules is about the rich take it all, it’s about the powerful get all of it. And that’s what’s gone wrong in America.’ She clearly doesn’t understand capitalism.”

* From Wall Street Journal editorial writers mimicking concerns by many others after Warren released her fanciful Medicare for All funding plan: “Now we know why Warren took so long to release the financing details of her Medicare-for-All plan. The 20 pages of explanation she released reveal that she is counting on ideas for cost-savings and new revenue that are a fiscal and health-care fantasy.

“You certainly can’t criticize the new Iowa Democrat caucus front-runner for lack of ambition. Despite criticism from fellow Democrats, she is sticking to her plan for a government takeover of American health care, including the elimination of private insurance that 170 million or so Americans now have. She continues to claim that this will cost ‘not one penny in middle-class tax increases.’ She walks on water too.”

* From William Galston in the Wall Street Journal as he accused Warren of committing political hara-kari: “Warren should be commended for the wealth of detail in her plan, which allows voters to judge it for themselves. This said, she may well have penned the longest suicide note in recorded history. There’s no reason for the entire Democrat Party to sign it.”

* From a letter to the editor writer in the Washington Post: “The insidious thing about Warren’s plan to dismantle American free enterprise is that she aims to sneak it past moderates by calling it ‘accountable capitalism,’ as if it is some mild tweaking of the capitalist system that has served the nation so well and has ensured freedom of the individual as no other system can.

“Warren proposes to make the market work.  In a free-market system, no one makes the market work. Thousands of individuals make choices based on the market conditions they face, and the outcome is the consensus view. This brilliant and efficient synthesis of opinions and desires of the many disappears in a market that is meddled with for the purpose of making it work. Warren is free to flog her government takeover, but she doesn’t get to sell it as a variety of capitalism. It is nothing of the kind.”

* From Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal: “So this is what nationalized health care looks like. We knew that half the U.S. population—some 177 million people—would lose their private insurance. Now we find out that federalized health care would cost nearly $52 trillion over 10 years, paid for by myriad bureaucratic “savings” and new taxes. There’d be a new Employer Medicare Contribution (i.e., a tax) plus an annual tax on the unrealized capital gains of the “wealthiest,” plus a threat to abrogate drug companies’ patents if they don’t comply with federal price controls. Doctors, some warned, might leave the profession.

“Warren has let the cat out of the bag: Progressivism is basically undeliverable pie in the sky. Indeed, by stringing together in detail so many progressive wish lists, she has made clear how difficult, if not impossible, it is for them to survive the most basic tests of political or fiscal plausibility.”

So, I agree, Warren has gone over-board. Initially, I was inclined to give her at least some credit for announcing how she would fund her “more government” goals on health care.

Now, I say rubbish. Her plans don’t hold up under scrutiny and also verify the left’s intent to have government control every area of private lives from health care, to education, to paying for higher education, to….you name it.

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.

This is a post for those among us who, (a) like golf, and (b) love to be involved in the often-arcane subject of golf rules.

The question:

Is it ever legal, under the official rules of golf, to take a “mulligan,” the word in golf that refers to taking a stroke again?

Most of us involved in golf would answer no.

But, the answer is yes.

The issue appeared under this headline in a recent Golf Digest magazine:

Pro receiving penalty for NOT taking mulligan is the weirdest rules controversy of 2019

The article went on:

“Even by their byzantine and bizarre nature, it’s been a rough go for the Rules of Golf in 2019. Still, this story involving Jesper Parnevik and a mulligan not taken puts other oddities to shame.

“During the final round of the SAS Championship, Parnevik missed a short bogey putt that horseshoed around the hole and ultimately hit his foot. From there, Parnevik tapped in what remained for his double.

“Only to find out that he really carded a triple.”

Under golf rules, it turns out that Parnevik was entitled – actually required — to replay the original bogey putt under Rule 11.1.b, Exception 2. Here’s the terminology:

“When Ball Played from Putting Green Accidentally Hits Any Person, Animal or Movable Obstruction (Including Another Ball in Motion) on Putting Green: The stroke does not count and the original ball or another ball must be replaced on its original spot (which if not known must be estimated).”

Because Parnevik failed to follow the rule, he incurred a two-stroke penalty.

Brian Claar, a former PGA tour player, was on the site as a rules official. When he saw what happened, he was confused.

“They said ‘did that really happen out there’?,” Claar told Reuters. “He actually gets a mulligan. It’s strange you get a do-over because there’s (generally) no such thing as a do-over unless you hit a power line or something. He should have put it back and tried again.”

The situation was so rare, according to Claar, that the United States Golf Association couldn’t recall the incident happening in a professional tournament.

The snafu did not decide the event. Parnevik finished 22 strokes behind the winner, Jerry Kelly.

And, upon reflection, I thought of another occasion when a mulligan is allowed under the rules of golf. It is when a golf shot hits a power line over or near a hole on a course. In that case, the player gets a do-over – automatically.

This has happened recently in two cases in junior tournaments run by the Oregon Golf Association where I have been a volunteer. At Mallard Creek in Lebanon and Rock Creek in Beaverton, power lines intrude on the course on a few holes.

Instructions I provide to players on the first tee instructs them that, if their ball hits a power line, play again.  No choice. No penalty. Take a mulligan.

Finally, a friend of mine pointed out this week that the official golf rules document does not use the word “mulligan.” True. Good catch.

But, still, the point is that, in the two situations outlined above, the players gets to play another stroke, without penalty, which is unusual in golf. And, most of us, if asked a question this subject – as remote as such a question would be – would say “no.”

“Yes” is the correct answer.

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.

The question in the headline was part of a thought-provoking piece this morning in the Wall Street Journal.

It appeared under this headline:

Universal Health Care Makes Politics Sick

Why would a president or prime minister want to be responsible for every single patient in the country?

From London, the author, Joseph Sternberg, asked probing questions about universal health care, often called a “single payer system” in this country – or going back a few years, ObamaCare. And, often in Europe, called “National Health Service.”

Sternberg started his piece this way:

“Elizabeth Warren is making socialized health care her signature campaign issue. Were British politicians not embroiled in their own election season, they might be weighing in with a question about this: Is she insane?”

Britain’s political class, Sternberg writes, knows all too well the perils of a state-run health system, indicated by:

• Cancer survival rates that lag far behind other European countries with more market-oriented health systems
• Winter crises
• Shortages of doctors and nurses
• Rationing
• Interminable waiting times

More from Sternberg: “It’s worth contemplating the ways state-run health care strangles a country’s politics like a python suffocating a pig. As soon as the government takes on full responsibility for health-care provision, health-care provision becomes political. And given the importance voters quite naturally place on their own health, health-care politics becomes the worst sort: Emotionally fraught and inescapable.

“Consider three of the myriad ways this distorts British political life.

• First, no amount of money is ever enough.
• Second, when the government runs health care, every political question boils down to health care.
• Third, and worst of all for a politician, to be the leader of a government that manages health care is to be personally responsible for every sick patient in the country. Every single one.

All of this called to mind for me a seminal issue in my past as a health care lobbyist in Oregon.

Early in my lobbying career, I was heavily involved in what came to be called “the Oregon Health Plan, a version of Medicaid in Oregon. It was an effort by the then-governor, John Kitzhaber, who had experience as an emergency room doctor, to put medical treatments under Medicaid into a specific order of priority based on their treatment efficacy.

Then, the government would fund as much of the list as possible, but not all of it if money was short.

Sounded good.

Didn’t turn out that way.

It led to complaints about whether it was appropriate to ration what should be a right – health care.

Early on, beyond all of the policy rhetoric, a classic case emerged. A young boy served by the Oregon Health Plan needed a heart transplant to survive. The treatment was not high enough on the priority to be covered, so it was turned down.

That produced a huge outcry over how the State of Oregon could let a young boy die.

The Legislature got involved and – no surprise here – the heart transplant was funded beyond the regular Oregon Health Plan budget.

Had I been a legislator at the time I might have voted for the “extra” money, too, given the incredibly serious status of the issue – literally a life or death. Putting treatments in priority order made sense in theory, but not so much in practice.

Now, to be sure, this was a story about one aspect of health care in Oregon– services for low-income citizens under Medicaid, not services for the entire population. Still, it indicates the reality that, under a single payer system, government would be responsible for all patients, including the sick ones.

Sternberg contends: “Nationalizing health care nationalizes bad outcomes, in every sense. Botched care—deadly cancers gone undetected, births gone wrong, autistic patients fatally mistreated—becomes national news because health care is national policy. Voters then expect to hold their politicians accountable for their doctors’ mistakes. Imagine one big rolling VA scandal coupled with the politicization of every instance of medical malpractice, and you get a flavor of what it’s like to read a British newspaper every morning.”

Is that something America wants?

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and others would say yes. Others, including those on the political right, would say no.

A better approach that nationalized health care, I contend, would be for a system to be developed that takes the best of Europe and the best of the U.S., merge those credentials, and offer quality health care options, including through smart private health care operatives, such as the hospitals and health insurers I represented for 25 years.

Sternberg gets the last word: “Seven decades into their own misadventure in socialized medicine, British pols have little choice but to labor in this salt mine. Why any American politician would volunteer to do so is a mystery for the ages.”

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.

Tom Brokaw made a name for himself in the world of television journalism, becoming a familiar figure in households around the country.

Today, in retirement, in addition to a few guest gigs as a political commentator, he writes books, the latest of which, The Fall of Richard Nixon, focuses on Nixon, recalls a terrible time in our history, but also conjures up images of Donald Trump.

Nixon created his own failure. Trump appears to be doing the same.

Here’s what Pulitzer prize-winning author Jon Meacham said about Brokaw’s book:

“A divided nation. A deeply controversial president. Powerful passions. No, it’s not what you’re thinking, but Tom Brokaw knows that the past can be prologue, and he’s given us an absorbing and illuminating firsthand account of how Richard Nixon fell from power. Part history, part memoir, Brokaw’s book reminds us of the importance of journalism, the significance of facts, and inherent complexity of power in America.”

As I read the book, I thought it should be required reading for all of those who work for Trump and appear to do his bidding without question, even at risk of their own careers, if not their own freedom.

That’s what happened to Nixon acolytes such as Bob Haldeman, John Erlichman, John Dean, Chuck Colson and many others. They not only cashed in their reputations, they spent time in jail.

Having Brokaw write about the Nixon-Watergate era recalls my own memories of the period, which represented a huge downfall of government, one from which we recovered, at least for a time. But we may be reliving the same tension as Watergate.

For me, the book also underscored a point Meacham made in his quote – “the importance of journalism and the significance of facts.” In some quarters, both appear to be missing today.

Consider two selected quotes from Brokaw’s book, both of which foretell, in fascinating detail, what could be happening to Trump.

From page 15: “By August 1973, several of Nixon’s top advisors had lied their way into certain jail time. The bungled Watergate break-in was symptomatic of a larger criminal conspiracy run out of the White House, the aim of which was to crush political enemies.

“The fabric of the presidency was unraveling and constitutional law was under assault. That we’ve known for some time. What is worth examining again, in light of today’s political climate, are the day-to-day developments, decisions and delusions, as well as the actions of the president, that led to the historic disgrace of the man who had come so far and fell so hard.”

Comment: Sound familiar? I wonder if current aides to President Trump, in the solitude of their evenings off the job, contemplate whether they are serving a president who has gone so far off the rails as to be unrecognizable – and if their own reputation will end up in tatters.

From page 125: In a State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress – “We meet here tonight at a time of great challenges and great opportunities for America. He expressed hope that America’s longest war – Vietnam – would be followed by America’s longest peace. That received a rousing reception. He then introduced a ‘personal word with regard to – and here his tone took a dismissive tone – the ‘so-called Watergate affair.’”

“The president challenged his adversaries. I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough.

“That challenge brought a booming round of applause from the Republican side of the House chamber. It was also a preview of the president’s strategy, so familiar to his political opponents. The best defense for Nixon was always a strong offense…One could imagine him saying to himself at night with his yellow pad in his lap as he sat in a favorite easy chair – You are the president, goddammit, act like it.”

Comment: Again, sounds like Trump today, except that he has his Twitter machine, not a yellow pad, on his lap.

I continue to believe we have it in our power as citizens to expect honesty, ethics and integrity from those who lead our democracy.  We don’t get that from Trump.  And we don’t get that from those on the far left.  Where are the centrists?

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.

Did presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren commit hara-kiri when she announced her plan for government to take ALL of health care?

Perhaps.

There is no big surprise here, but the more we know about Warren’s plan have the government make all of your health care decisions, the more it fails to impress.

The senator running for president on the Democrat side came under substantial pressure to say how she would fund here support for Medicare for All, as the Democrats like to call it. To appease those critics, she announced a plan.

William Galston, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, was among those who pilloried Warren’s effort, using colorful imagery-laden language, including the hara-kiri word above, the description of an old Japanese form of suicide.

“Warren should be commended for the wealth of detail in her plan, which allows voters to judge it for themselves. This said, she may well have penned the longest suicide note in recorded history. There’s no reason for the entire Democratic Party to sign it.”

The headline for Galston’s piece used the Japanese suicide phrase “Health Care Hara-Kiri” to describe Warren’s commitment.

“Is the country ready for the ‘big structural change’ that Warren is promising?,” Galston asked. “Would the Democrat Party be wise to bet that it is? The answers to these questions will shape the outcome of the nomination contest and the general election.”

More from Galstson.

“Since Warren made her plan public, analysts have sharpened their pencils and gone to work. Many believe she has underestimated the cost of her program and overestimated the revenue from the measures she would use to pay for it. But on one point there can be no doubt: Medicare for All would enroll everyone in the same government plan, whatever their preferences.

“Let’s be clear about what this would mean. According to the most recent government statistics, more than 218 million Americans now participate in private health care plans, of which 179 million are employment-based. As critics of Medicare for All have pointed out, many of these plans are the result of tough negotiations in which employees have compromised on wages and working conditions in return for more-generous health-insurance benefits. These workers would be asked to surrender their hard-won gains in return for a promise that they will prefer what they get from the government instead.”

So, like many of those on the far left, Warren wants bureaucrats to be in charge of your and my health care.

I say no.

Take ObamaCare – I had my own questions when it was first started several years ago – and make it better. Capitalize on the fact that it has had the effect of reducing the number of uninsured in this country.

To use another image, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Doing the right thing will take a concerted on the part of both Democrats and Republicans. The Ds have to back away from their commitment to government-run stuff. The Rs have to find a way to say something other than “no.”

Meanwhile, Warren continues to insist that, if Democrats are willing to put up a fight, they can get Medicare for All done.

“As I recall,” Galston writes, “the Light Brigade was full of fight, but its charge into enemy lines still yielded an epic catastrophe.