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 latest impeachment process is now over, but, as a political junkie, I cannot get the subject out of my head – or, for that matter, off my blog posts.\

So, here, using one of the departments I run, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, I waft onward.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:  Democrats said Mr. Trump’s acquittal amounted to a defeat for the institution of Congress, and they warned that leaving Trump in office would free him to try to cheat again in this year’s election.

COMMENT:  There is little doubt but that the Democrats fear will become reality.  Just consider this next quote.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST…AGAIN:  More ominously, this (the impeachment decision) leaves the president free to try to cheat in the very election that is supposed to provide the remedy for his cheating.]

COMMENT:  Exactly.  Trump acolytes want us to ignore his illegal acts and wait until the 2020 election.  Right.  Wait until an election that already has been tainted and will be tainted again by the president who is above any law and acts like it.]

FROM WASHINGTON POST ANALYSTS CATHERINE RAMPELL:  Worried that President Trump might use the power of his office to punish personal enemies?

Hate to break it to you, but you’re three years too late.

In a bilious hour-long rant, Trump ranted against the “scum” and “very evil and sick people” he blames for his impeachment.  And he was not the only West Winger making ominous comments about what might become of those who’ve wronged him.

Our vindictive president, now unshackled by his frightened followers in Congress, may well be teed up to punish his perceived political enemies. And we needn’t exercise much imagination to envision how this loaded-gloved counterpuncher might weaponize his executive authority.

Because he’s done it already. Many, many times.

COMMENT:  Rampell is exactly right.  Trump uses the presidency for his own ends and, in fact, as an accomplished narcissist, views his interests and the nation’s interests as identical.

FROM WASHINGTON POST ANALYST DANA MILBANK:   “You can’t trust this president to do the right thing,” lead House manager Adam Schiff said this week in his final plea before the Senate’s impeachment vote. “He will not change, and you know it.”

But even Schiff couldn’t have known how quickly President Trump would prove these words true.

The morning after his acquittal in the Senate, Trump attended the National Prayer Breakfast where political opponents have always set aside their differences.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the assembled to “raise our voices in prayer as one.”  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) prayed for his colleagues, including Pelosi, and said God couldn’t have “picked a better day to bring us all together.”

And then there was Trump. He complained that he was “put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people.”

Referring to Mitt Romney, the lone Republican to support impeachment, Trump said, “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.” Referring to Pelosi, just a few feet away, he added: “Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you’ when they know that’s not so.”

COMMENT:  For Trump, the impeachment process – yes, the stain on his record is that the fact is that he has been impeached – should have been a moment for introspection.

But, Trump is incapable of such thought.  He is motivated only by getting even with those he believes have slighted him.

That’s amounts to a lot of people these days.  Count me among them as I wish for something better for this country – better than Trump.