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.

Let it be said that the Washington Post agrees with me.

When it comes to the impeachment process, I wrote in this blog that it made no sense to me that, instead of the process, we should just wait until the next election in 2020.

Sure.

Wait for an election that is already tainted and will continue to be skewed in favor of Trump by actions Trump himself takes, immune as he is to anything and anyone who fails to bow before the Trump altar

With a series of intentional act by the president, U.S. democracy is being turned on its head.

Here’s the way the Post made the same point:

“President Trump has fallen into a pattern of behavior: This is not the first time he has solicited foreign interference in an election, been exposed, and attempted to obstruct the resulting investigation.

“He will almost certainly continue on this course.

“We cannot rely on the next election as a remedy for presidential misconduct when the president is seeking to threaten the very integrity of that election.”

For me, that is the bottom line of the impeachment process. Go forward with it because we cannot trust the next election.

A footnote.

More than 750 historians across the national have signed on to a letter that verifies Trump’s abuse of power. Here is what the letter said:

“President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what the Framers had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president. The president’s offenses, including his dereliction in protecting the integrity of the 2020 election from Russian disinformation and renewed interference, arouse once again the framers’ most profound fears that powerful members of government would become, in Hamilton’s words, ‘the mercenary instruments of foreign corruption.’”