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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

There have been many opportunities these days to ask this question:

How soon during or after a tragedy is it acceptable for political leaders to make political comments?

For me, politicians have moved far too quickly to make political comments immediately.

Consider two recent examples:

FOREST FIRES:  Even as fires raged around Oregon, various political figures assigned the cause of the fires to “climate change,” shorthand for legislation about which there is little if any consensus in Oregon, as well as nationally.

Others jumped up quickly to blame bad forest management for the fires, which, if true, is the fault mainly of the federal government which owns a majority of forest lands in the West.

I say better for all of those who comment to express concern for those who have lost lives, for those who had to evacuate, and for the now-scarred landscape in the state.

Time later to talk politics.

JUDGE GINSBURG’S DEATH:  Just moments after the jurist had breathed her last, political comments centered on what to do next.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank put it this way in a column this morning under this headline:

“They couldn’t even wait until Ruth Bader Ginsburg was in her grave”

He wrote this:  “I have never been as disgusted with our politics, and with my profession, as I was this weekend.

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday just before the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. She was not only one of the greatest jurists in our history, a pioneering defender of women and the oppressed, and one whose life story of love and perseverance inspired millions.  She was also a Jew.  You don’t have to be a Jew, or a believer, to see the symbolism — the loss of this great woman at the very moment that, in the Jewish tradition, God begins the renewal of the world — to know that there is powerful, spiritual meaning here that should call us all to reflection on the meaning of Ginsburg’s life.

“Instead, some 80 minutes after her death was reported, Senator Mitch McConnell, a man without a shred of decency and seemingly without a soul, announced his intent to replace her as fast as possible, before the next president is sworn in.

“Senator Lindsey O. Graham soon joined the Senate majority leader, announcing a 180-degree reversal from his position toward Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016, and somehow blaming the Democrats for his rank hypocrisy and dishonorable conduct.

“Democrats and progressives, thus provoked, responded with threats of revenge:  Eliminating the filibuster, packing the court if Joe Biden wins, even adding states to the union.

“And some of my colleagues in the media, regrettably, furthered the immediate politicization of Ginsburg’s death or demanded to know senators’ positions on the new nominee — before Ginsburg, whose dying wish was that the next president name her replacement, was even in her grave.”

Milbank is right.

Politics has become so crass in this country that early words in a tragedy are devoid of emotion or sympathy.  All anyone wants to do is seize the initiative to capitalize for supposed political gain.

I think we deserve better from those who claim to lead our government.