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.

When you Donald Trump talk, do you have any idea what he just said?

I don’t.  Few do.

I have been ultimately critical of Trump for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that he hates the country he supposedly wants to lead…again.

But this week, Atlantic Magazine used good word to describe one of Trump’s major problems — incoherence.

When he says something, he puts words in his mouth which happen to flow from his brain.  Call it brain and mouth disease.

He has it in spades.

Consider this example provided by The Atlantic:

“The lack of clear policy commitments in Trump’s response yesterday to a question about childcare is a problem.  But the biggest problem, the problem that all journalistic analysis of Trump’s response ought to lead with, is that his answer makes absolutely no sense.

“Yesterday, at the Economic Club of New York, one member asked Trump a very specific question about his policy priorities:  ‘If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child-care affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?’

“Trump’s reply was not only not specific, it was incoherent.  After a little throat-clearing about how ‘important’ an issue child-care is, he seemed to turn to a discussion of his nebulous idea to increase tariffs on foreign imports, although even that is hard to ascertain.

“The lack of clear policy commitments in Trump’s response is a problem; so is the fact that the tariff plan he has been hawking is likely to raise prices for American consumers by billions of dollars.  But the biggest problem, the problem that all journalistic analysis of Trump’s response ought to lead with, is that his answer makes absolutely no sense.

“Earlier this summer, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, warned about ‘one of the most pernicious biases in journalism, the bias toward coherence.’  Journalists ‘feel, understandably, that it is our job to make things make sense,’ he wrote.  ‘But what if the actual story is that politics today makes no sense?’”

The senior editor of The Atlantic, Isabel Fattal, concurred, saying that she spends much of her time reading through press coverage of Trump’s latest statements.

“In this case,” she adds, “I was heartened to see at least a few analyses leading with the incoherence of his child-care reply.  But press coverage of Trump’s statements is not actually serving readers unless each and every article begins with the fact that his words are gibberish.

“Trump’s inability to respond to the most basic of policy questions without devolving into inarticulate rambling does not bode well for next week’s debate.  A similar performance then could show the American public once again that the man is not fit to be president.  But it would help if journalists would report accurately on what we’re all seeing in front of us.”

So, the Atlantic raises two good points.

1. Trump speaks mostly gibberish.  Call it incoherence.

• Journalists need to do a better job of describing it as that – incoherent, though I worry they won’t do that important job out of a concern that they “need to be fair.”  But, to me, “fair” means that writers need to call out Trump for what he is, a provider of gibberish.
  
  

To voters, I say don’t go with Trump.

To journalists – and, at one point in my career, I was one – I say do a better job of reporting Trump’s incoherence.