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.

I wrote a few days ago to question whether the “checks and balances” system in American democracy still would work as a felon, Donald Trump, moves into the Oval Office for the second time.

My summary:  I did not know whether the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court would find a way to stand up to Trump.

Well, my analysis was incomplete.

I say that after reading humorist Dave Barry’s annual column in the Washington Post as he dissects 2024.  It is always a great read.

This time, Barry wrote briefly about checks and balances:

“… Joe Biden, who repeatedly promised that he would not pardon his son Hunter, cements his legacy as the most Joe Biden president ever by pardoning his son Hunter, thus forcing the Democrat Party to change its mantra from ‘Nobody is above the law!’ to ‘Hey, it’s complicated.’

“The wording of the pardon document is quite broad, covering ‘all offenses committed between 2014 and 2024, including any currently unsolved bank robberies, not that we are suggesting anything.

“The pardon outrages many Republicans who would be fine with it if Trump did it, while it’s fine with many Democrats who would be outraged if Trump did it.

“For, that is how our system of checks and balances works.”

Good point, Mr. Barry.

And, as 2024 moves into the rearview mirror, if you want to spend a bit of time guffawing, just read all the piece Barry wrote in the Post. 

And note the “checks and balances” sentence.

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.

The Wall Street Journal produced a long, front-page story about how President Joe Biden not only had “gatekeepers,” but some of those officials shielded him from many interactions that could have revealed his age-related frailty.

In short, these advisors thought Biden was so old that he couldn’t function normally in many of the usual roles of a president.  So, rather than just gatekeeping, they protected him.

That fact became abundantly clear when Biden couldn’t produce understandable sentences during the televised campaign debate against Donald Trump.

Losing the debate turned out to be the major reason why Biden finally decided not to run for re-election.

The Journal’s story about the tactics represented solid journalism.  It started this way:

“Presidents always have gatekeepers.  But in Biden’s case, the walls around him were higher and the controls greater, according to Democrat lawmakers, donors and aides who worked for Biden and other administrations.  There were limits over who Biden spoke with, limits on what they said to him, and limits around the sources of information he consumed.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote this about how Biden’s staff protected him, though, unfortunately, she did not mention the name of a chief of staff who deserves debit for playing this game:

“The story is the decline of Joe Biden’s mental acuity, a word we use because it sounds both clinical and polite, and by which we mean the president has been in apparent cognitive decline for some years, perhaps since before taking office, and wasn’t fully up to the job.  His family and friends, top White House staff, and other administration officials covered it up.  Some no doubt thought his presidency was good for the country and some, perhaps, good for them.”

“Gatekeeper” is nothing if not an interesting word.

Without having to define it, the word conveys reality.  Stop at the gate unless someone lets you in.

Every high government official, from presidents to governors and others, have “gatekeepers” – those who allow certain folks in to see the top official and those who bar the doors.

Gatekeeping is not always negative.  It’s just the reality for busy public officials unless, of course, gatekeepers leave the gates mostly closed.

The Wall Street Journal story reminded me of an excellent book I read by Chris Whipple entitled, “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.”

Mr. Google describes the book as follows:

“The first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions — and inactions — have defined the course of our country.

“What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common?  Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to a president of the United States — as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others.

[Here, the Journal could have or should have mentioned James Baker who served as chief of staff for two presidents and made the position into an art form, resulting in a book about his roles called “The Man Who Ran Washington” – see below.]

“The chiefs of staff, often referred to as ‘the gatekeepers,’ wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond.  They decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push the president’s agenda, and — most crucially — enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world.  Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks.”

To produce his book, Whipple conducted interviews with 17 living chiefs and two former presidents.

More from Mr. Google:

“Award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity.  In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker’s expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution — and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might have been prevented by a more effective chief. 

“Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, ‘The Gatekeepers’ offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.”

I read the book with a lot of interest a few years ago because, if nothing else, I am a political junkie.  I love to see how government works or doesn’t work.  And to achieve this, I often rely on solid journalism by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

The chief for Ronald Reagan named above – Baker – also worked for George Bush, the elder, and was the person with the elder Bush as he died, thus illustrating how close they were in life and in death. 

I was not a gatekeeper in Washington, D.C., but I did play a similar role on a couple occasions in Oregon, including for the governor I mentioned in this blog introduction.  Never with the weight of presidential issues on my hands, but, still, enough to enable me to provide the following posits for what an excellent gatekeeper should do, which stands in direct contrast to what top-level operatives did for Biden.

The posits:

• Of course, given that presidents, governors and others high up in government cannot see everyone, gatekeepers guard the door as to who gets in to see the leader.

• However, gatekeepers should not guard the door by allowing only those in who agree with the leader they represent. 

• Instead, gatekeepers should give the leader for whom they work a chance to hear what he or she needs to hear from those who, respectfully, disagree and have something important to say about that disagreement.

• Gatekeepers should take initiative to book appointments for leaders that will advance the administration’s agenda…which means meeting with folks who may not ask for a meeting, but should be consulted.

No doubt, on a subject this deep and wide, I’ll think of other posits, but for now, that’s enough.

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.

This blog headline asks what can be viewed as (a) a silly metaphor, but also (b) a foreboding question.

Remember the story of Scrooge, the famous story written by Charles Dickens.

Well, this week, in The Atlantic Magazine, writer Tom Nichols draws the comparison this way:

“The main character of the story is the legendary Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge, an obnoxious miser who delights in his sneering misanthropy.

“Scrooge is a mossy cistern of cold, sour inhumanity.  His miserliness isn’t just about hoarding wealth for himself; it’s about the petty vengefulness he takes in denying money to others.  When two men come to his office to ask for contributions to alleviate the suffering of the indigent, one of them tells Scrooge that poor people would rather die than go to the workhouses and other nightmarish institutions to which they are consigned.

“Scrooge responds with calm and undiluted contempt:  ‘If they would rather die,’ he says, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’”

Then, Nichols hits the nail on the head when it comes to the state of politics in America.

“I don’t want to overdraw comparisons to our current politics, but when political leaders are talking about creating mass detention camps in America, and voters — even those who were once undocumented immigrants themselves — approve of such ideas despite the danger to their own family, this kind of Victorian viciousness feels uncomfortably relevant.”

At the risk of stretching a parallel, Nichols is right.

I have read story after story in the last weeks about folks who voted for Trump, then realized that he intended to deport members of their own families.

Trump, like Scrooge, is miserly because he wants to keep wealth for himself and his cronies rather than watch out for the public good.

Still, Nichols cites this reality – Trump heading for his second trip to the Oval Office because more Americans voted for him than for Kamala Harris.

So, I say to myself and others, adjust yourself to the Trump reality, even as many of us fear it.

More from Nichols:

“Scrooge’s repentance comes after years of a wasted life and a night of trauma and shame.  The rest of us, however, don’t have to wait.  Each of us, every day and in our own small way, can resolve right now that mankind is our business,that the common welfare is our business,and that charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence are all our business,no matter what we do to fill our days or put food on our table—and no matter whom we voted for.

“Americans can’t control much of what’s about to happen in their national politics.  Some of the people about to govern the United States may be determined to be conscientious public servants, but others seem convinced that their fellow citizens are, to use the president-elect’s words, ‘vermin’ and ‘scum.’

“These people will bring division to our public life.  Responding in kind, or acquiescing, or withdrawing entirely and believing in nothing, will all be powerful temptations.  Giving in to anger or despair is easier, of course, but such feelings are empty emotional calories that eventually leave people spiritually starved.  We might hope that others will change their mind, but the sustainable path is to control what’s in our own heart.”

I don’t know whether Nichols is a Christian or not, but these words, his words – convey a set of Christian values…. charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence.

Regardless of how perverse Trump and his cronies act, each of us, as a citizen, can practice those values.

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.

For those of us who used to work in journalism and now watch reporters practice the art, the Fact Checker column in the Washington Post is one of the top pieces of journalism going these days.

Started in late 2007 as a feature during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Post revived it as a permanently in 2011.

Since then, the column has been written by Glenn Kessler and his partners at the Post.

In an award-winning journalism career spanning more than four decades, Kessler has covered foreign policy, economic policy, the White House, Congress, politics, airline safety, and Wall Street.

He was the Washington Post’s chief State Department reporter for nine years, traveling around the world with three different Secretaries of State.  Before that, he covered tax and budget policy for The Washington Post and also served as the newspaper’s national business editor.  He has been editor and chief writer of The Fact Checker since 2011.

So, with this background, I summarize below what Kessler and colleagues have labeled “The biggest pinocchios of 2024.” 

First, why the word pinocchio?  Well, it arises from the fairy tale about the small boy who, as he told lies and fibs, his nose got longer.  Thus, a good brand for this kind of political truth-telling as it awards “pinochios.”

From Kessler and staff:

“The annual roundup of the most outlandish claims of 2024 features four claims by President-elect Donald Trump, along with other lowlights.

“As usual with Trump, it’s hard to isolate a particular falsehood, but the Washington Post Fact Checker Column focused on four — two having to do with immigration, one on tariffs, and another on the unemployment rate.  

“Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, also landed on the list (not for the first time) for an immigration-related claim that Trump echoed in a presidential debate.

“In fact, five of the 12 claims below relate to illegal immigration, showing it was a potent issue in the election season.  

“President Joe Biden merited two spots, for a false claim on the inflation rate and for a round-up of his unverified claims about his life.  Biden’s flip-flop on pardoning his son Hunter earned a bonus award.

The list below appears in no particular order.  I give full credit to the Washington Post for practicing this kind of quality journalism.

1.  “The Harris-Biden administration says it doesn’t have any money for hurricane relief.  The Administration spent it all on illegal migrants.  They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.”

— President-elect Donald Trump, October 3

Trump sought to weaponize Hurricane Helene relief efforts, accusing the Biden Administration of failing to provide adequate assistance.  As part of his critique, he claimed there was no money available for hurricane relief because it was spent already to handle the surge of migrants at the southern border.  This was false:  Money was not running short, and the Biden Administration did not spend FEMA disaster money on migrants.

•  “I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12. … President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”

— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (R-Alabama), March 7

In the centerpiece of the Republican response to State of the Union, Britt told a long story about a victim of sex trafficking who she suggested was recently abused in the United States and suffered because of Biden’s policies.  But Biden had nothing to do with the travails of Karla Jacinto Romero, later identified as the person Britt referenced in the speech.  In fact, Jacinto was never trafficked to the United States; she worked in Mexican brothels during the George W. Bush Administration.

•  “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”

— Vice President-elect JD Vance, September 9

Vance sparked one of the oddest controversies of the campaign season by falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets — a tweet inspired by a false rumor on a Facebook post about migrants eating cats.

•  Inflation “was at 9 per cent when I came in and it’s now down around 3 per  cent.”

— President Joe Biden, May 14

Inflation was an albatross for Democrats in this election year.  After decades of stable prices — inflation of about 2 per cent a year — the sudden increase early in Biden’s term was a shock, both for consumers and policymakers.  Inflation, as measured by the year-over-year percentage change in the consumer price index, spiked to a 9 per cent annual rate in June 2022 — the highest level in 43 years.  By Election Day, it had fallen below 3 per cent, but that was not good enough for many Americans.

• “Over 13,000, the exact number’s 13,099, convicted illegal, alien murderers are now on the loose.”

— Trump, October 1

Illegal immigration surged during the Biden Administration, and Trump made many false claims about the issue during his campaign.  This statement — which became a standard line in his speeches — was especially egregious.  Trump twisted a report on the number of non-citizens with criminal convictions that were not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make it sound like they had been released under Biden.  But the data went back 40 years.  Most of these killers are in some sort of detention and have been since before Trump was president.

•  Biden Tall Tales

Biden, like many politicians, likes to tell stories — stories in which he tries to connect his own life with his audiences’ life and that makes up an essential part of his persona.  But throughout his career, Biden’s propensity to exaggerate or embellish tales about his life has led to doubts about his truthfulness.  That didn’t change in his last year as president.  He claimed “I used to drive an 18-wheeler” — not true, but an amalgam of driving a school bus in college and being a passenger on a 47,000-pound cargo truck.  He said he was on a list of 10 most eligible bachelors; no such list can be found.  He said he was the first in his family to go to college — but evidence suggests his father did.  And he claimed he was the state runner-up in scoring in high school football; he was in fifth place.

•  “Tyson Foods has its eyes on a different class of workers. The company is now offering new jobs to asylum seekers in other states. … They’re firing Americans and offering perks to illegals.”

— Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters, March 14

Watters put Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest meat-packer, in the spotlight. With his platform on Fox News, he generated a firestorm on the right by claiming that Tyson was firing workers in Perry, Iowa, “one of the great American suburbs,” and hiring undocumented immigrants elsewhere in the country.  It wasn’t true.

• “A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. That’s the way it is, whether you like it or not.  A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No, no, no.  It’s a tax on a foreign country.  It’s a tax on a country that’s ripping us off and stealing our jobs.  And it’s a tax that doesn’t affect our country.”

— Trump, August 17

Trump says he will impose an across-the-board tariff on all imported products.  But in making the case for his policy, he repeated the false claim he made often during his first term as president — that the entire tariff is paid by a foreign country.  Economists do not debate this fact; they agree that tariffs — essentially a tax on domestic consumption — are paid by importers, such as U.S. companies, which in turn pass on most or all the costs to consumers or producers who may use imported materials in their products.  So many pay, not just those pay tariffs first.

• “We had the best unemployment rates ever. And they were real unemployment, not like you have today where nobody’s working and they consider it to be.”

— Trump, January 21

Trump rode to victory in 2024 in part because of Americans’ dissatisfaction with the economy, especially inflation. The unemployment rate, however, was a bright spot — the lowest numbers in 70 years.  So, Trump reached back to the playbook he used in the 2016 election, when the economy was also on an upswing — suggesting the unemployment numbers are fake.  That was false.  And naturally he falsely claimed that he had the best unemployment rate ever — when in fact Biden beat him.

1. “McCormick’s promised the richest people in America a massive tax break. To pay for it, he’s made clear he’ll slash your Medicare and Social Security and cut Medicaid for nursing home care.”

— Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, October 10

The Senate race between Casey, the incumbent, and former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick was one of the closest in the nation.  In an ad, Casey walked out of a bank vault as he complained that McCormick’s “billionaire buddies” have spent $150 million attacking him.  Then he did something unusual — he directly attacked McCormick as having “made clear he’ll slash your Medicare and Social Security and cut Medicaid for nursing home care.”  Usually, negative ads use voice-overs or text to make incendiary claims as a way to shield the candidate from possible fact checks.  McCormick had said no such thing, and Casey’s campaign had no evidence to back up the claim.  The ad did not seem to help Casey, who lost the race by about 15,000 votes out of 7 million cast.

1. Bonus Award: Flip-Flop of the Year

                  President Joe Biden

On June 13, Biden was emphatic:  “I’m extremely proud of my son Hunter. … I’m not going to do anything.  I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him.”  Less than six months later, the flip-flop:  The president not only pardoned his son for his conviction on three felony gun charges, three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses — he issued a sweeping pardon that absolved Hunter Biden of any possible federal crimes he might have committed between 2014 and this December 1.

Again, this conclusion from me.  The Fact Checker Column represents journalism at is finest. 

I hope the Post keeps it up.

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.

This blog headline lists one of most interesting words I have heard in my life – spelunking.

I heard it for the first time many years ago and just read it again the other day.

What does it mean?

“The exploration of caves, especially as a hobby.”

In some ways, that’s not enough of a definition.  For, when I first came into contact with the word, I saw a TV show illustrating spelunking.  It was when individuals decided to go underground between rocks where they could squeeze in to explore a cave.

Not me.

So, to herald this good word, I open the Department of Words Matter, one of five I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.  The others are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know, and the Department of “Just Saying.”

This time, the word “spelunking” arose in a column reporting a discussion among four analysts about politics in America.  It was led by New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, one of the best writers going in America – and it appeared in the Times.

Here is one quote from Bruni:

“Donald Trump will be inaugurated and Republicans will control both chambers of Congress.  Happy Holidays!  Judged by the sheer volume of words that have been written and spoken since November 5 about their party’s comeuppance, Democrats have gone beyond soul searching to soul spelunking — they’ve descended into whole new subterranean caverns of analysis.”

Good point, not to mention a good word.

Another good word arose in the discussion Bruni led.  This:  Echo-Chamber.

Here was the quote:

“The sign outside HQ now should say ‘Beware:  Entering an Echo Chamber.’  I said move to Youngstown, but it could be Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Toledo or Detroit or Milwaukee.  But I am dead serious that it should not be in Washington or anywhere on the coasts.  We need to send a bold signal that we are committed to reconnecting to people out in the real world.”

This quote came from Tim Ryan, the former U.S. House Speaker who was too good to last in the job he did not have for long.

He faulted Democrats for being in an “echo-chamber,” which means “an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.”

Another good point – and a good word.

To reclaim their heritage – a party that cares about someone other than themselves – Democrats need to get out of their echo-chamber and listen to what real people are saying in the U.S., far from Washington, D.C. 

Then, I say there are two ways to achieve ends:

• First, listen to what real people have to say.  One of my former business partners put it very well when he said, “God gave you two ears and one mouth – so listen twice as much as you talk.”  Politicians, of course, tend to talk rather than listen.l

• Second, design ways to respond that make connections with real people – real people who display their citizenship by voting.

So, don’t spelunk and get out of your echo-chamber.

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.

Washington Post columnist David French asked a probing in his most recent column that appeared under this headline:  “WHY ARE SO MANY CHRISTIANS SO CRUEL?”

I will repeat one solid quote from his column, then reprint many of his words:

Here’s the quote:

“He didn’t just experience a humble birth.  Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power.  As a child, he was a refugee.”

Consider those words for a moment.  Jesus was born in a humble place – a stable — and lived a humble life on earth.  He also did not pursue power for its own sake and submitted himself to a horrible death at the hands of those who opposed him.

And, “he was a refugee.”

If Donald Trump was alive in Jesus’ day, he would have proposed to deport him.  But, that’s enough of Trump for this blog; I’ll save more comments on the foreboding nature of his coming administration for another day.

What follows are excerpts from French’s column, plus a closing point from me.  And, why quote French?  He has credentials.  He is an American political commentator and former attorney.  He was formerly a fellow at the National Review Institute and a staff writer for National Review from 2015 to 2019.  And, also, he is a veteran of the Iraq War.

His column excerpts:

“Here’s a question I hear everywhere I go, including from fellow Christians:  Why are so many Christians so cruel?

“I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone say something like:  I’ve experienced blowback in the secular world, but nothing prepared me for church hate.  Christian believers can be especially angry and even sometimes vicious.

“It’s a simple question with a complicated answer, but that answer often begins with a particularly seductive temptation, one common to people of all faiths:  That the faithful, those who possess eternal truth, are entitled to rule.

“Under this construct, might makes right, and right deserves might.

“Most of us have sound enough moral instincts to reject the notion that might makes right.  Power alone is not a sufficient marker of righteousness.  

“We may watch people bow to power out of fear or awe, but yielding to power isn’t the same thing as acknowledging that it is legitimate or that it is just.

“The idea that right deserves might is different and may even be more destructive.  It appeals to our ambition through our virtue, which is what makes it especially treacherous.  It masks its darkness.  It begins with the idea that if you believe your ideas are just and right, then it’s a problem for everyone if you’re not in charge.

“There’s also a theological objection to the idea that right deserves might.  In Christian theology, Jesus was both God and man, a person without sin.  I’m fallen and flawed.  He is not.

“And how did this singular individual — this eternal being made flesh — approach power?  He rejected it, by word and by deed.  And it all began with Christmas.

“If a person is going to look for a coming king, the last place you’re going to start is in a stable.  But that humble birth presaged a humble life and the establishment of what my former pastor always called ‘the upside-down kingdom of God.’”

“Christ’s words were clear, and they cut against every human instinct of ambition and pride:

• “The last will be first.”

• “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

• “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

“Those were the words.  The deeds were just as clear.  He didn’t just experience a humble birth; Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power.  As a child, he was a refugee.

“And then, faced with the ultimate test — an unjust execution — right yielded to might.  The son of God allowed mortal men to torture and kill him, even though he could have freed himself from Rome’s deadly grasp.

“When Jesus did triumph, he didn’t triumph over Caesar.  He triumphed over death itself.  When he ascended into heaven after his resurrection, he left earth with Caesar still on the throne.

“My own attitude about Christmas has changed over the years.  A day that was once purely celebratory is now also profoundly humbling.  In many ways, the facts surrounding Christ’s birth are as important as the fact of Christ’s birth.  How he arrived was a signal of why he arrived:  To redeem hearts, not to rule nations.

“The way of Christ, by contrast, forecloses cruelty.  It requires compassion.  It inverts our moral compass, or at least it should.  We love rags-to-riches stories, for example, so if many of us were writing Christ’s story, we might begin with a manger, but we’d end with a throne.

“But Christ’s life began in a manger, and it ended on a cross.  He warned his followers that a cross could come for them as well.  An upside-down kingdom began with an upside-down birth.  

“When Jesus himself is humble, how do we justify our pride?”

And, I suggest, we should live by the words in Luke 6:38:  “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Doing good means taking care of others just as you take care of yourself —  not as a way to earn credit for God, but as a result of your salvation.

Take Jesus’ example as an axiom for your life, even as, again, we celebrate Christmas just around the corner.

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.

In all the to-ing and fro-ing (there, one of my favorite phrases again) of the effort in Congress to avert a government shutdown, consider this unheralded fact:

As Members of Congress move to reach, eventually, a decision on a compromise, someone – or probably more than one “someones” – had to sit in room in the depths of the Capitol and the new proposed laws into words.

How many?

The original bill was 1,547 pages long.   It was slimmed down to 116 pages for Thursday’s vote and grew slightly to 118 pages on Friday.

It is true that lawyers working for Congress must write all the words into each piece of legislation.  Of course, that’s what they are paid to do.  But it also takes a lot of time in the writing dungeon.

It is the same in the Oregon Legislature where I worked as a lobbyist for 25 years. 

Every piece of legislation under consideration by lawmakers – hundreds of “bills” in every legislative session – must be drafted by attorneys who work for what’s called the “Legislative Counsel Office.”

In effect, the office is a law firm for legislators.

In the category of more than you may want to know, lobbyists like me must secure what’s called “a note from mother” to be able to talk to attorneys in the Counsel’s Office.  That’s because the attorneys work for the Legislature, not for lobbyists.

The “note from mother” is simply a note from a legislator that it is acceptable for a lobbyist to talk with a bill-drafting attorney.

So, the bottom line in any legislative session in Oregon is that all bills are drafted by attorneys.  It is an often not well understood fact in Oregon legislative processes because some observers of the Legislature believe that lawmakers or lobbyists write bills. 

They don’t.

The same is true in Congress.

So, with all the national media attention on the “to’ing and fro’ing” in Congress (or how Elon Musk and Donald Trump – perhaps that is the right order – are giving orders in the process), just realize that certain poor souls are working in the depths of the Nation’s Capitol putting all the words on paper.

Regardless of the substance, they should get credit for the process.

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.

This blog headline is one that appeared over a column a day or two ago by Frank Bruni whose work appears in the New York Times.

Every once in a while, a column is so good that I use it for my blog.  This is one of those times and I give full credit to Bruni for analyzing whether and, if so how, Donald Trump will deliver on all the promises he made along the campaign trail.

Bruni’s consensus:  Trump won’t.

Here is the column.

*********

Now, supposedly, Donald Trump must deliver.

The easy promises of the campaign trail yield to the arduous chore of governing, and either he comes through with lower prices, faster growth and order on the border, or he and his Republican allies confront an erosion of support and a reckoning at the polls.

I keep reading and hearing that. It’s the obvious analysis, the default prognostication, and it’s the refuge of Democrats desperate for a way back: The leader will be judged by how effectively he leads.

But that musty truism may not apply anymore, not to the extent it used to, not when truth itself is up for grabs. If ever someone were poised to govern under circumstances in which results are only marginally relevant and accountability is a quaint relic — the manual typewriter of American politics — it’s Trump.

That’s a function of both the age and the man. No president in my lifetime has been elected in such a corrupted information environment, and no president has so shamelessly participated in its corruption.

If Trump fails by established metrics, he’ll declare those metrics bogus and delegitimize the experts and agencies that calculate them. And there’ll be no shortage of partisan players in the Babel of news media and social media to support him in that scheme. We saw that when they indulged his lies after the 2020 election. They’ve grown only more submissive since.

If Americans under Trump are demonstrably and undeniably hurting as much as they were under President Biden, he’ll weave stories and hurl accusations that absolve him of responsibility and assign it to his political foes.

And he’ll find many more takers than he would have before we could all customize the reports we receive so that our designated heroes remain unblemished, our appointed villains irredeemable, our biases affirmed.

And before our entrenchments in such cinched corridors of pseudo-reality zapped our powers of discernment. “We’re living in a world where facts instantly perish upon contact with human minds,” George Packer wrote in The Atlantic this month.

“Local news is disappearing, and a much-depleted national press can barely compete with the media platforms of billionaires who control users algorithmically, with an endless stream of conspiracy theories and deepfakes. The internet, which promised to give everyone information and a voice, has consolidated in just a few hands the power to destroy the very notion of objective truth.”

Elon Musk, anyone? He’s a fixture at Mar-a-Lago. That’s no accident and no small thing. Trump will bromance whom he must and do whatever’s necessary to twist the narrative in his favor. No scruple impedes him. No concern for precedent or propriety complicates his resolve.

That’s the scary moral of the past week, when he spent several minutes of his first big news conference since Nov. 5 putting journalists on notice: I will take you to court. You will cry uncle or else. He then made that clear by filing a lawsuit against the pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm and The Des Moines Register for producing a public opinion survey shortly before the election that augured a big victory by Kamala Harris. Flawed soothsaying is hardly libel — and so Trump’s lawyers instead claimed consumer fraud.

Trump wants the FBI to be run by a provocateur, Kash Patel, who has vowed to throw mouthy journalists in jail.

The peerlessly bombastic Trump booster Steve Bannon used a speech at the New York Young Republican Club gala on Sunday night to raise that same specter. According to an article by Hugo Lowell in The Guardian, Bannon said:  “I need investigations, trials and then incarceration. And I’m just talking about the media.”

He wondered if the media should be “included in the vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump.” He mentioned the MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann and the MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow by name.

This is about intimidation. It’s about creating a climate in which The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos prevented his news organization from endorsing Kamala Harris and in which, just this week, ABC News settled a defamation suit that Trump had filed against it by agreeing to pay $15 million to his future presidential foundation and museum, all because of an imprecise choice of words by George Stephanopoulos that, in the view of some legal scholars, fell far short of the “malice” necessary for ABC News to be found liable.

“Compared to the mainstream American press of a decade ago, today’s press is far less financially robust, far more politically threatened, and exponentially less confident that a given jury will value press freedom, rather than embrace a vilification of it,” RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah, said in an article in The Times by Michael M. Grynbaum and Alan Feuer.

Ever the predator, Trump smells that fear. And he’s pouncing.

We in the news media could and should be more careful in some of our reporting, less blinkered in many of our assessments. But Trump isn’t trying to make us better or get a fair shake. He wants plaudits only and he wants us on our knees, our ability to criticize him inferior to his ability to deify himself, our lances too blunt to pierce the cocoon of flattery in which he has tucked himself.

The next best thing to results is illusions. And a record of accomplishments isn’t necessary in a hall of mirrors, not if it’s big and blinding enough.

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.

My answer to the question in the headline:  I devoutly hope so.

As I join many others in being concerned about Donald Trump’s elevation to the presidency, I have wondered whether the normal checks and balances process in the federal government will still work.

And in particular, will it work under the felon heading to the White House as he contemplates revenge and punishment for anyone who has opposed him?

With this question in mind, I went to Mr. Google to re-learn the following:

• “Checks and balances” in the federal government refers to a system where each of the three branches — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial – has the power to limit or check the actions of the other branches, preventing any one branch from becoming too powerful.  For example, the president can veto laws passed by Congress, while Congress can impeach and remove the president from office, and the Supreme Court can declare laws unconstitutional. 

• Key examples of checks and balances:

Legislative Branch checks on Executive:

+  Approving presidential appointments (judges, cabinet members) 

+  Overriding a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote 

         +  Impeaching and removing the president from office 

+  Controlling the budget 

Executive Branch checks on Legislative:

+  Vetoing bills passed by Congress 

+  Issuing executive orders 

+  Calling special sessions of Congress 

Judicial Branch checks on Legislative and Executive:

+  Declaring laws passed by Congress unconstitutional 

+  Reviewing executive actions for constitutionality

Now, it could be contended that Trump does not want any of this to work.  After all, he views himself as a king, if not a savior.

Checks and balances worked when former congressman Matt Gaetz had to withdraw after being nominated by Trump as attorney general.  He was eminently unqualified for the position and others in Congress proved it when they said they would say “no” to Gaetz, so he had no choice but to withdraw instead of losing a confirmation vote.

I hope other Trump picks – Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, Kash Patel, to name four – suffer the same fate because they, too, have no business running anything.

There is another check, but it may not always work – or least produce immediate results.  It is public opposition to what a president, Congress or the Judiciary want to do.

If, as some contend, every vote matters in the United States, then how people “vote” with their views, not just “vote at the ballot box” should matter. 

We’ll see how all this plays out in just a few weeks when the felon enters the Oval Office appearing to be intent on damaging America’s democracy, not to mention its standing in the world.

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.

This blog headline, which I borrowed from my on-line edition of First Call, could be overstated. 

Time bomb?  Maybe not.

But slow play is a major issue for pro golf, one that trickles down to all of us who love the game and play as amateurs.

And, indicating that slow play is a hot-button issue for me, I choose to write about it again today.

First Call Writer Gary Van Sickle started the debate by writing about slow play a week or so ago.  Then, his piece prompted letters to the editor, which I reprint below.

LETTER #1:  “Enough already.

“You have 40 seconds to play.  They need to start tracking each player on every hole.  One person following the group, timestamp when the first player tees off.  Timestamp the next player’s shot.  Then you timestamp when every player hits their shot.

“It should become apparent who the slow players are and how long they take to play. 

“When they go to sign their scorecard show them the data and, if necessary, hit them with a one-stroke penalty for playing slow that day. 

“PGA Tour, LPGA, Korn Ferry, colleges … it’s nuts how long they take.  All that impacts private clubs and public courses around the country.  Put in a comment section for searching for a lost ball, penalty drop, weather delay, etc. in case there are delays that need to be accounted for.

“Call Maverick McNealy, he could figure it out.”  [McNealy is a current pro player who graduated from Stanford, so he no doubt is a smart guy, not to mention an up and coming playes who got his first win this year.]

LETTER #2:  “Perhaps if they enforced the rules already on the books, they could help improve the pace-of-play.

“They allow guys like Keegan Bradley to mark, re-mark, do a form of the cha cha dance before putting.  Speaking of marking, I’ve seen pros mark from inches away to realign the ball, etc.  Madness.  Just tap it in.

“The pros are fairly insecure and have mental, as well as swing, coaches. Guys like Max Homa go through a grueling process before each shot.

“Why they need to start that after their playing partner has hit rather than while he’s hitting is a mystery.  

“On the LPGA, other than Nelly Korda, the pace is snail-like.  The pros are far too reliant on their caddies and engage in lengthy discussions
before pulling a club.  They all want to copy Phil Mickelson and Bones [Jim Mackay] who started this trend.  Their lack of confidence and mental toughness is shocking for world-class athletes.

“On the PGA Tour, now with smaller fields of multi-millionaires, any monetary fines are meaningless.  Stroke penalties perhaps.  Even that probably won’t help.  Coming in 15th or 25th still garners a six-figure check now that Mickelson allegedly forced bigger purses and the players decided to shrink the fields.

“The LPGA isn’t as greedy and has bigger fields, and a monetary fine could be a significant incentive to speed things up.  Hard to say.

“I doubt much will change.  There’s no real appetite among the ones with any real power to enact change.  They could have done it already if
they really wanted to.”

LETTER #3:  “I believe that during a tournament there should first be a warning and the player or players put on the clock.  If the pace doesn’t improve, a one-stroke penalty should be imposed.  If the pace still doesn’t improve, then a two-stroke penalty and a monetary fine.

“The pace of play infractions should then be placed on the player’s permanent record so that in the future, if the player is cited for slow play again in another tournament, the penalty is doubled and the player is disqualified.  There is simply no reason why a round can’t be completed in four hours, give or take a few minutes.”

Good letters.  All three.

The solution, as I have advocated previously, is simple.  Place a shot clock on golf carts that follow each group on every golf hole.  Start the clock at the appropriate time as a player has drawn a club.  One missed time generates a warning.  A second miss generates a one-stroke penalty.

And so on until disqualification.

This was done, by the way, a few years ago in Europe, in a tournament called The Shot Clock Masters.  It worked well.

Before long, pros – even though they make thousands of dollars each week – would get the message.

As one letter writer said, those in golf already could have made a change if they wanted to do so.  They could simply enforce existing pace-of-play rules.

Who knows why they don’t as they watch TV ratings go down.

As a footnote, where I play as an amateur in the winter at The Palms Golf Course in La Quinta, California, the solution already is in place, albeit for all of us as amateurs.  We are given three hours and 40 minutes to play 18 holes.

If we miss the mark, we are given a warning and then, if we miss again, we get fined.

So I say, just play golf.  Don’t dawdle.