Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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 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.

Donald Trump tells a whopper!

That’s all that can be said after listening to Trump talk about sharks and electrocution.  Yes, you have that right. 

Sharks and electrocution!  Two issues that don’t go together, except in the addled mind of Trump.

I report all this after the first presidential debate where two things happened – President Joe Biden illustrated his age and Trump continued telling whoppers.

Fortunately, I didn’t watch the “debate.”  A friend yesterday asked me why, figuring that I, a political junkie, would have watched.  I said “no,’ I didn’t watch because I knew it would not be a real debate – just an occasion for both candidates to illustrate their weaknesses.

Better, I thought, to read reputable commentators the day after to get a full picture.

Back to one of Trump’s biggest whoppers, which I report, not because it offsets Biden’s incredibly bad performance in the debate, but because it illustrates the strange way Trump thinks.

Trump, who wouldn’t know the truth if you hit him in the head with it, has outdone himself this time.

Read the way Jeff Goldberg, editor of Atlantic Magazine, tells it in a recent column.

“Trump is upset with me, and with The Atlantic, for a story I wrote in September of 2020, in which I reported, among other things, that he referred to American soldiers killed in action as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’

“Trump is also upset by a profile I wrote late last year of retired General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which Milley, a decorated combat veteran, is portrayed as someone who defended the Constitution against Trump’s depredations. In response to this article, Trump suggested that Milley be executed.”

Goldberg went on, reporting that he had watched Trump at his LV rally where, he said, the gibberish overran normal sentences.

“Which is to say, there was even more gibberish than I remembered in the typical Trump speech.  The apotheosis of gibberish was his extended soliloquy on sharks and battery-powered boats.  No summary could do it justice, so here is an extended cut:

“’By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that?  A lot of sharks.  I watched some guys justifying it today.  Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy. ‘

“He said, ‘There’s no problem with sharks.  They just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming,’ now, who really got decimated and other people too, a lot of shark attacks.  So I said, ‘So there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here.  

“’Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, and water goes over the battery—the boat is sinking; do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?’ Because I will tell you he didn’t know the answer.

“Trump said, ‘Nobody’s ever asked me that question.’  I said, ‘I think it’s a good question.  I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water.’  But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I’ll take electrocution every single time.  I’m not getting near the shark.  So we going to end that. We’re going to end it for boats. We’re going to end it for trucks.’”

Can you believe it? 

Trump actually said the stuff about sharks and electrocution. 

Trump tells more whopper than anyone, me included, can count.  What’s above represents another one – and this guy wants to be president.