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.

Almost done with impeachment commentary.

Note the word “almost.”

There is “almost” no way to describe the final vote in the Senate where most Republicans decided to acquit Donald Trump.

But I will say this:

The impeachment process will stand in history as a clear indictment of Trump and his abhorrent conduct.  He escaped.  He was not exonerated.

Most Republicans refused to cross the demagogue who appears still to rule the party.

To be sure, seven Republicans voted to convict Trump and I call their decision “votes of conscience.”

Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, put it this way in his report about the impeachment vote:

The vote to acquit Trump was a “craven surrender to the political imperative not to cross the demagogue.  But the impeachment trial was not in vain, for it revealed the ugly truth:  Trump knew lawmakers’ lives were in danger from his violent supporters, and instead of helping the people’s representatives escape harm, Trump scoffed.

“When the yeas and nays were counted, seven Senate Republicans voted along with all 50 Democrats to convict Trump.  The other 43 Republicans, some of whom, like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, feebly denounced Trump’s conduct even as they acquitted him, now have the cowardly distinction of licking the boots of the man who left them to die.”

And from the New York Times, this:

“Defeated by Joe Biden, stripped of his social media megaphone and twice impeached — still Donald Trump remains the dominant force in right-wing politics.

“The determination of so many Republican lawmakers to discard the mountain of evidence against Trump reflects how thoroughly the party has come to be defined by one man, and how divorced it now appears to be from any deeper set of policy aspirations and ethical or social principles.”

Given this unfortunate, though predictable, result in the U.S. Senate, it is now time to move on to other issues and hope Trump ends up in two places – (a) in state courts where he would have to defend himself and his fading empire, and (B) in the ash bin of history.