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.

What came in my e-mail in-box yesterday were three summaries of the case against Donald Trump as he tells America he needs another four years in office – or, more accurately, that we need him because “he is so great.”

Actually, there were more than three summaries, but I’ll limit the list to these three:

• Representatives of the Lincoln Project, a group of past Republican political operatives who say it is time for Trump to go for the good of the country.
• Washington Post political columnist Dana Milbank who, in a bid to mimic Trump tweets, produced a column in all capital letters and, with exclamation points, summarizing Trump’s record of offenses.
• Washington Post columnist George Will who projected that Trump will leave office as he entered three-plus years ago – whining.

Here are selected excerpts from each:

FROM THE LINCOLN PROJECT

“In two weeks, the most consequential election of our generation will come, and your time for choosing will arrive. As Republicans, will you stand with President Trump, or will you stand with, and stand up for, America? Will you protect democracy or protect a single person and his family?

“We’re not merely talking about your vote.

“We’re talking about what comes next.

“Never before in U.S. history has an incumbent president refused in advance to accept the outcome of an election. In the days ahead, your party may call upon you to support efforts by a White House that refuses to transfer power after a loss at the polls. The weapons won’t be tanks but thousands of lawyers backed by an attorney general who works for the president, not the people.”

FROM DANA MILBANK:

What Trump has done as if he was commenting, via tweet, on his own performance (and Milbank’s list is much longer than what I reprint here):

LETTING 220,000 AMERICANS DIE FROM COVID-19 — WORST IN WORLD. VOTE!

LOSING 3.9 MILLION JOBS IN FOUR YEARS — WORST IN RECORDED HISTORY. VOTE!

KNOWING PANDEMIC WAS “DEADLY STUFF” ON FEB. 7 BUT OPTING TO “PLAY IT DOWN” AND MISLEAD AMERICANS. VOTE!

PROPOSING BLEACH AS A COVID CURE, MOCKING MASK-WEARING, HOSTING WHITE HOUSE SUPERSPREADER EVENT AND SUGGESTING ANTHONY FAUCI IS AN “IDIOT.” VOTE!

FROM GEORGE WILL:

“As the Donald Trump parenthesis in the republic’s history closes, he is opening the sluices on his reservoir of invectives and self-pity. A practitioner of crybaby conservatism — no one, he thinks, has suffered so much since Job lost his camels and acquired boils  — and ever a weakling, Trump will end his presidency as he began it: whining.

“His first day cloaked in presidential dignity he spent disputing photographic proof that his inauguration crowd was substantially smaller than his immediate predecessor’s.  Trump’s day of complaining continued at the CIA headquarters, at the wall commemorating those who died serving the agency. His presidency that began with a wallow in self-pity probably will end in ignominy when he slinks away pouting, trailing clouds of recriminations, without a trace of John McCain’s graciousness on election night 2008.”

So, to include, I say do what I already have done, which is to end the Trump lunacy.