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.

“In this abundance of distractions and dramas, the political fate of the nation oscillating between extremes, a fairly subdued President Trump delivered his annual address to Congress in a monotone. From time to time, he would cock his head in a quizzical, half-challenging way, working his smiles and freeze-pose grimaces.

“Behind him sat Vice President Mike Pence, as mysteriously impassive as always, and the woman who stage-managed Trump’s impeachment.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi compulsively worked her teeth with lips and tongue, her fidgeting countenance alive with fury. When the president was finished, she emphasized the theater of the evening by dramatically ripping up the text of the speech, as if to say, like Samuel Johnson kicking a stone to dismiss that bishop (Berkeley) who preached the unreality of things: I refute him thus!”

This is how essayist Lance Morrow described the scene in the U.S. House as President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address only a day before the U.S. Senate stooped to new depths by acquitting him of impeachment, even in the face of substantial evidence that he demanded that a foreign country intervene in the next presidential election.

Does the way I wrote the previous paragraph indicate my bias?  Yes.

Trump compromised the good of this country – an open and fair election – for his own good because he relates the two as being equal.  What is good for him is good for the country.

With impeachment acquittal, it is useful to consider the long-range implications of what has happened in Congress over the last couple months.

The main implication:  Abuse of power by the president has now been ruled entirely appropriate.

As for the State of the Union address — normally a time when the country comes together to review the past and look toward the future — I didn’t watch Trump’s reality show appearance where again he took credit for everything even when he doesn’t deserve it and ridiculed everyone who does not bow at his altar.

Many Democrats in the chamber couldn’t stand his bluster, so walked out.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in what had to be a planned demonstration, tore up a copy of
Trump’s speech just as he finished — and all of it was caught by TV cameras.

As I write this, I cannot help but remember the governor I worked for in Oregon, Victor Atiyeh.  A hallmark of his style was that he did not seek credit for good things he did or that happened on his watch.  Rather, he deflected credit and took solace in the simple fact of the good things.

A contract to Trump?  Yes.

After impeachment acquittal, we, as Americans, face several realities:

• One is that Trump, emboldened by what has happened, will continue abusing his power because, after all, even he has said there are not bounds — zero — and the Senate has now concurred with him.  Would he ever learn from a failure — being impeached is a failure — and change his behavior.  No.
• A second reality will be that new presidents — and I hope there is a new one after Trump, either in 2020 or 2024 — will face no guardrails on their actions.
• A third reality is that the U.S. Senate has lost all claim to being the “world’s greatest deliberative body.”  It will take years to reclaim that standing, if it ever will happen.

Here’s the way Washington Post political writer Philip Rucker put it in last weekend’s edition of the newspaper:

“The evidence of President Trump’s actions to pressure Ukraine was never in serious dispute.  After a systematic presentation of the facts of the case, even some Senate Republicans concluded that what he did was wrong.

“But neither was the verdict of Trump’s impeachment trial ever in doubt.  The impending judgment that the president’s actions do not warrant his removal from office serves as a testament to Washington’s extraordinary partisan divide and to Trump’s uncontested hold on the Republican base.

“The expected acquittal also has profound and long-term ramifications for America’s institutions and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, according to numerous historians and legal experts.

“In effect, they say, the Senate is lowering the bar for permissible conduct for future presidents.”

Speaking of lowering the bar, consider what Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz told the Senate (yes, I have written about this before, but I do so again because the comment still stuns me).

If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected “in the public interest,” Dershowitz intoned, “then that cannot result in impeachment.”  So, Trump can demand that Ukraine interfere in the U.S. election and can ask China to do the same.

No problem,  Dershowitz says.

George Washington Law School attorney Jonathan Turley wrote this:

“That idea provided the most dramatic — and damaging — moment of the trial.  Dershowitz’s argument produced audible gasps.  It was an argument that would have made Richard Nixon blush and suggested that any abuse of power short of a criminal act would be by definition unimpeachable.

“The damage had been done. The president’s defense was then tied inextricably to this extreme and chilling argument.”

We, as Americans, are victims of Trump and it is possible, if Democrats don’t get their act together by proposing a candidate who can appeal to folks who don’t reside in Trump’s alternate universe, then we’ll face four more years of presidential abuse.