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.

There is no right answer.

If you are a public official, do you:

• Support coronavirus restrictions to save lives?
• Support the economy to save lives?

As I said, no right answer.

It would be nice – to use a word, “nice,” that Trump uses all the time when his limited vocabulary fails him – if it were possible to achieve both aims at the same time.

It is not. At least not so far.

Meanwhile, by various news or social media posts, we are pulled this way and that way as we try to deal with the pandemic. Imagine what it must be like for reasonable public officials (exclude Trump) as they try to decipher ways to go and to bring those they govern along with them.

Examples:

• Trump says he wants the economy to begin operating by Easter — while various governors and mayors say that would be disastrous for the regions they govern. [See below.]
• Trump and even New York Governor Andrew Cuomo are touting hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as treatments for coronavirus — while many scientists and epidemiologists say the drugs are untested and even could cause death or blindness.
• A ray of hope arose when the U.S. Senate surmounted political considerations to pass a coronavirus relief bill by a unanimous vote — while the U.S. House dithered as if it was political dissension as usual…including when one opponent of the bill said he would object, thus requiring members of the House to return to Washington, D.C. to vote in person instead of doing so remotely.
• Under substantial pressure, not to mention threats to their own health, reasonable journalists continue to try to get solid information to the public — while right wing media wackos continue to propound the notion that the epidemic is only another chapter in the Democrat goal to get Trump out of office.
• Those same wackos are coalescing around the phrase, “the cure is worse than the disease” — while hospitals prepare for what could be a run on their facilities, supplies and staff by coronavirus victims.

Back to the Trump goal to free the economy by Easter.

In the Washington Post, columnist Michael Gerson described his concern:

“…Easter is the holiest date on the Christian calendar, when the resurrection of Christ is celebrated. And it would be blasphemous to use a day dedicated to the renewal of life in a manner that leads to further death. The packing of churches in a little over two weeks would almost certainly be an epidemiological disaster in much of the country. It is impossible to imagine most priests and pastors treating the lives of their congregants with such disdain.”

For my wife and me, Easter will be a day of celebration, but I suspect it will occur by remote means – still meaningful, but different than our normal “up from grave he arose” collective anthem.