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 past-time – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The words in the headline to this blog are appropriate.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who appears to be able to argue strenuously for any side of any issue as long as someone will pay him, made a claim in the Senate impeachment hearings that sparked the words – jaw dropping, audacious, startling.

Even to my eye – someone out West who apparently has nothing better to do than watch impeachment television – the Dershowitz claim defied understanding.

He said:

• Presidents can do nearly anything so long as they believe their re-election is in the public interest.
• If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.
• I want to be elected. I think I’m a great president. I think I’m the greatest president there ever was.   If I’m not elected, the national interest will suffer greatly. That cannot be an impeachable offense.

Really?

Sounds a lot like Donald Trump himself.

So, in this case, it was absolutely acceptable for Trump to ask a foreign nation to intervene in what is supposed to be a fair and open election for the next president in this country. He wanted the foreign intervention to rig the election his way.

“Dershowitz’ argument was beyond absurd,” said New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand. “I thought he made absolutely no sense — because he essentially said that if President Trump believes his election is for the good of the American people that he could do whatever he wants. He is wrong, and I think he’s made a laughable argument that undermines the president’s case.”

Even late night comics entered the case.

The Washington Post reported this:

“Jaws dropped across the United States on Wednesday as comics, Democrat politicians, legal scholars and TV personalities came together in collective disbelief at the audacious claims of presidential immunity made by President Trump’s impeachment lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

“The most frequent analogies — drawing on Dershowitz’s argument that presidents could do almost anything as long as they believe their re-election is in the public interest — were to monarchs, dictators and former president Richard M. Nixon.

“Alan Dershowitz un-impeached Richard Nixon today,” tweeted John Dean, the former White House counsel under Nixon, whose testimony helped lead to the 37th president’s resignation.

“This is inane. The president could threaten people (including with our army) unless they voted for him? Could order a break-in of DNC headquarters?” tweeted Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general during the Obama administration. “I’m not sure even kings had such powers.”

Comedy Central host Trevor Noah picked up on the monarchy theme as well: “This whole idea seems more like a monarchy or something.”

For me, it’s one thing for all the president’s men to advocate on his behalf. It’s quite another to throw out the U.S. Constitution and contend that the president should be given a pass on what is a clear and mind-boggling action – Trump tainted the 2020 election, which ought to give all of us, as voters, great pause.

Just wait, he’ll do it again and again until the election.