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.

Regarding the blog headline, I miss Reagan for various reasons, including his ability to turn an apt phrase.

For one, many of us remember his jocular quote to Walter Mondale at a 1984 Presidential debate:  “I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign.  I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

Point made.  Nothing more needed to be said.

As for today, Donald Trump can’t stop talking while he utters lie after lie, most of which are designed to underline his own aggrandizement.  He does not know how to turn a good phrase, or even what it means to do sol.

Which means that I, like many others, pine for the days of Ronald Reagan.

Here is a selection of his great quotes:

• Thomas Jefferson once said, “We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.”  And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
• I never drink coffee at lunch.  It keeps me awake in the afternoon.
• I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.
• Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, but if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
• The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with an appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.  
• A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane, and smells like Cheetah.
• Spoken during a radio microphone test:  My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever.  The bombing will begin in five minutes.
• On Clint Eastwood running for Mayor:  What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who’s played with a chimp, could have a future in politics?
• I have learned that one of the most important rules in politics is poise, which means looking like an owl after you have behaved like a jackass.
• It’s hard when you’re up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here – in Washington — to drain the swamp.
• The current tax code is a daily mugging.
• It’s true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
• I have wondered at times what The Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through Congress.
• A recession is when a neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours.  And recovery starts when Jimmy Carter loses his.
• The most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
• Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.
• There are advantages to being elected President.  The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified as top secret.
• One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.
• I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.
• Spoken as he refused a mule for a gift:  I’m afraid I can’t use a mule. I have several hundred up on Capitol Hill.
• The taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take a civil service examination.
• Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.
• Some of you may remember that in my early days I was a bleeding-heart liberal.  Then I became a man and put away childish ways.
• Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government.  Nuts!  The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political.
• Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
• How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin.  And how do you tell an anti-communist?  It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
• Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:   If it moves, tax it.   If it keeps moving, regulate it.  And if it stops moving, subsidize it.         
• Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets.
• We were poor when I was young. But the difference then was the government didn’t come around telling you that you were poor.
• To his wife Nancy, after he was shot in a 1981 assassination attempt:
  Honey, I forgot to duck.
• To the medical team in the operating room just after his 1981 assassination attempt:  I hope you’re all Republicans.

Where is Ronnie Reagan when we need him?

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 now open one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

This time, I open the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.  Three national columnists caught by attention as they asked:

• Where has the idea of classy behavior gone?
• How did the White House develop a bubble where loyalty, not ability, defines success?
• How did Donald Trump rise from political ruin in 2021 to seize the commanding heights of government and the world economy?

Good questions all.  So here are answers from the columnists.

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/  Executive Editor of the Journal’s  editorial page, Matthew Hennessey, asks:  “Where Did All the Classy Americans Go?  From politics and podcasts to sports and TV, everybody’s taking the low road.”

Here is how he started his column:

“I’ll bet it’s been a while since you heard someone in public life described as ‘classy.’  The word, and what it represents, has gone AWOL.  The culture has time only for outrageous characters — F-bombers, exhibitionists, interrupters, slobs.  The sublime has given way to the garish, the sacred to the profane.

“Personal qualities once synonymous with good character have fallen so far out of fashion as to seem like rumors from an ancient age.  Did athletes really once accept defeat with dignity?  Did people really restrain themselves from saying everything that popped into their heads?  Did known philanderers refrain from trying to mount political comebacks?  Did ex-presidents stay out of the limelight as a courtesy to their successors?”

Hennessey says , blame Donald Trump if you like.  Then adds:  “That’s the easy answer.  He’s coarse and wears baseball hats.  He eats steak with ketchup and says things that people in high office shouldn’t say.  There’s no excusing Trump’s crudest behavior other than to point out that it’s worked for him.  

“He’s insulted, lied, bluffed, manipulated, moaned and wisecracked his way into history. Like it or not, Trump is the dominant political figure of our age.  Mitt Romney chose the classy route.  What exactly did it get him?”

This general notion – the lack of class – crossed my mind, as well – in this regard.  There is not class in politics these days and that owes its lineage to Trump.

Class – including middle ground on major public policy issues — is nowhere to be found as everyone argues for their view, while maintaining that anyone with another view is an enemy.

Sad!

FROM THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE, in a column written by the top editor there, Jeffrey Goldberg who ascended to a bit of fame recently when he was added to a supposedly secret group-chat – call it “Chat-Gate” — about war in the Yemen/

Here is how Goldberg started his column:

“This month’s cover story is written by two of our newest reporters, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer. Both came to The Atlantic from The Washington Post, where they covered the White House and national politics.  As one might expect, they have developed complicated and intriguing ideas about the brain of Donald Trump and the nature of Trumpism.

“A simple question animates their story: How did Trump rise from political ruin in 2021 to seize the commanding heights of government and the world economy?  One is not required to admire Trump to acknowledge that he has become the most consequential American political figure of the 21st century, and that we all live inside a reality he has made — and makes anew each day.

“…Trump himself has a capacious understanding of his power.  ‘The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,’ Trump said.  He was referring, it seems, to anyone who’d investigated him.  ‘And the second time,’ he added, ‘I run the country and the world.’”

I add that real Americans can only hope Trump doesn’t succeed in his quest to “run the world.”

For, as The Atlantic adds:

“Denial and attack have worked exceedingly well for Trump.  His decision to foment the January 6 insurrection would normally have ended his political career, but it didn’t.  Trump called the insurrection a ‘day of love,’ and his decision, at the outset of his second term, to pardon or commute the sentences of the insurrectionists — ­transforming even those who assaulted police officers into victims of malignant prosecutors — only made him more powerful.”

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST/  Writing by columnist Philip Bump appeared under this headline:  “The bubble that created Trump is the reason he’s stumbling; the White House is now a bubble where loyalty, not ability, defines success.”

Bump goes on:

“Consider Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“No one should be surprised that Hegseth is flailing in his new role, one of the most arduous and complicated in the U.S. government, if not the world.  When  Trump proposed that Hegseth run the agency, the response was broadly unified:  Hegseth lacked the experience needed to do the job effectively.  You could debate the other controversies surrounding his bid for the role ad nauseam, but there was no way to reasonably argue that the Fox News talk-show host was prepared to run the Pentagon.

“Hegseth was confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate anyway because Trump and a universe of voices who support him insisted Hegseth was the best choice for the job — because he was Trump’s choice for the job.

“It’s the same bet that prominent Republicans have been making on Trump himself since 2015.  Now, as Trump too is flailing — polling and the data make clear that he is — it’s trivial to identify that insular chorus of cheerleaders and cynics as a root cause.

“The president owes his political career to that same bubble.  Over the past few decades, the fringe right and then Republicans more broadly embraced discussions of the world that were mostly devoid of nuance:  Left bad, right good.

“Part of the reason that Trump’s second administration is filled with loyalists and unqualified nominees is that he disliked the accountability and disagreement he saw during his first four years at the White House, when his administration was staffed with a far larger number of qualified officials.”

So, at least for this morning, enough about Trump.  Just, with me, hope that class somehow returns to the forefront – in politics and in life.

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.

Last weekend was a day of contrasts like many others if you compare the excesses of the Trump administration and the future of this country, if not the world.

Trump has turned almost everything upside down – and the top side is almost always anything that benefits him and him and his minions.

Consider these issues:

THE POPE’S FUNERAL:  Trump headed off to the Vatican the other day “supposedly” to pay his respects to Pope Francis whose official funeral occurred Saturday. 

But did Trump know what he was doing to pay respects to a Pope who emphasized care for the poor and the marginal, almost the exact opposite of what Trump has done so far in his second presidency?

Who knows?  I suspect not, for Trump does not have the credentials of sympathy or empathy for those who need help in their lives.

Plus, at the Pope’s funeral, Trump violated the suggested dress code.  It was supposed to be in all black with other mourners, but, of course, Trump, ever his own boss, wore blue.  And, during eulogies, when the late Pope was complimented on his care for the poor and needy, Trump frowned.

ANGST AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE:  Here, let me quote from the most recent column by Dana Milbank, writing in the Washington Post.

“We now know the woefully unqualified a former Fox News personality, Pete Hegseth, is to run the Department of Defense.  He shared details of a military operation in a second Signal chat; this one, the New York Times reported, included his wife, brother and lawyer.  He also had the app put on his Defense Department computer.

“Hegseth has purged his top staff — people he just hired — and blames them for a series of damaging leaks.  He set up a top secret briefing on China for Elon Musk, ignoring an outrageous conflict of interest that even the Trump White House couldn’t stomach.  He brought his wife to sensitive meetings.  He had a makeup studio set up for his TV appearances, CBS News reported.

“Under Hegseth, the whole place has devolved into paranoia and vulgar recriminations…”

AMATEUR HOUR IN OTHER FEDERAL AGENCIES:   It’s not just at the Pentagon.  Across the Executive Branch, in agency after agency, it’s amateur hour under the Trump administration.

More from the columnist Milbank:  “A titanic legal battle is now under way with Harvard University over academic freedom and billions of dollars in grants?  The whole thing might have been set off by mistake.  The New York Times reported that the university, after announcing its intention to fight the administration, received a ‘frantic call from a Trump official’ saying the administration’s letter full of outrageous demands that provoked the standoff was ‘unauthorized’ and should not have been sent.”

AND ABOUT UNAUTHORIZED DEPORTATIONS:  In the celebrated case of Kilmar Abrego García, deported from Maryland to El Salvador in violation of a court order, the Trump administration blamed ‘an administrative error and ‘an oversight’ for the original deportation.

And, of course, he nor his minions will do anything to correct their error, so Abrego Garcia remains in a hell-hole of a prison.

Trump also is trying to justify Abrego García’s deportation retroactively with a statement from a disgraced police officer who claims the Maryland resident was an ‘active member’ of the MS-13 gang in Upstate New York — where he has never lived.

And — oops — the administration did it again.  On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge ruled that the administration had deported another person, a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant, in violation of a court-approved settlement, and must facilitate his return.

FINALLY, A MAJOR DEMOCRAT CALLS OUT TRUMP:  In a fiery address to New Hampshire Democrats on Sunday night, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker condemned what he described as Trump’s “authoritarian power grabs” while also blasting the “do-nothing” Democrats in his party — stating it is “time to fight everywhere, all at once.”

As reported by the Washington Post, the billionaire Democrat governor repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet with acidic attacks on the morals and ethics of the president, adviser and top donor Elon Musk, as well as members of the president’s Cabinet.

“He slammed their efforts to dismantle government programs that the most vulnerable Americans rely on and said the Democratic Party must ‘abandon the culture of incrementalism that has led us to swallow their cruelty.’  It is time for his party, he said, to ‘knock the rust off poll-tested language’ that has obscured ‘our better instincts.’”

Finally, Pritzker, calling out Trump’s “xenophobia” and thirst for power, went on to say that Democrats must “stop thinking we can reason or negotiate with a madman.”

This could have been step number one in a run by Pritzker for president next time around when, of course, Trump will contend that, despite the constitutional bar, he deserves a third term.

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 wife and got back a few hours ago after having the privilege of attending a 6 a.m. “Sunrise Service” at the church we attend in La Quinta, California, Southwest Church.

To use a “play on words”:

• We were able to watch the “sun rise” to the East.
• We were able to commemorate the “son rise,” a monumentally critical fact of Easter because we can have a relationship with a risen Savior, the son of God!

In some ways, I have hesitated to use the word play above because the word “play” carries the risk of de-emphasizing this critical reality.

So, if the word play helps to tell a monumentally important story, good.  If not, just ignore it.

Yesterday, on another Easter story, I read with interest a column that appeared in the Wall Street Journal written by Nicole Ault, an assistant editorial page writer.  Her column appeared under this headline:  “Easter Merits More Handel’s Messiah:  A Christmas favorite, the oratorio has more to contribute to Holy Week celebrations.”

Here is how her column started:

“We wouldn’t celebrate Christmas without Easter — Christ’s birth has no meaning if he didn’t rise from the dead — but Easter gets short shrift.  Not even a federal holiday, Easter season is marked more by tacky testaments to spring than any meaningful traditions.  It is also deprived of one of the most beloved works of sacred music: George Frideric Handel’s Messiah.”

Ault went on:

“To many Westerners, Handel’s “Messiah” is as embedded in Christmas pageantry as “The Nutcracker” ballet.  The 18th-century oratorio is performed in churches and symphony halls around the world in December.  And justifiably so:  Its jubilant account of the Nativity is Christmas music nonpareil.

“But the oratorio wasn’t written for Christmas.  Charles Jennens, the English librettist, wrote to a friend in 1741 that he hoped Handel would put his text to music and “perform it for his own Benefit in Passion Week.”  

“As it turned out, “Messiah” debuted in Dublin a few weeks after Easter in 1742, but for years in Handel’s lifetime and after it was performed around the holiday.”

The fact that Wall Street Journal editors gave space to Ault’s column is a credit to the Journal.

“Somewhere in the unbroken decades of performances since,” Ault added, “the Messiah became a yuletide industry while showing up much less at Easter time.  London, where Handel lived and is buried, has some performances for the holiday.  But searching the internet for a Holy Week performance in New York, Chicago or Washington, I found only one:  A sing-along at the Latter-day Saints’ D.C. Temple.  This is a pity, because “Messiah” captures the pathos of the battle with sin and death that represents Easter more than any springtime flower or garden rabbit.

“The latter two sections of the three-part work—with Jennens’s lyrics drawn entirely from Scripture — give an account of Christ’s sacrifice, victory and second coming.  Handel’s text-painting, guiding listeners’ emotions, is an excellent aid for experiencing the weight of the biblical narrative.

Ault ends her column the way I hoped she would:

“But besides testifying to facts that require faith, “Messiah” also bears witness to a hope that results from that faith.  The feeling is personal: “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” sings the soprano in one of the work’s sweetest solos, “yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

“It is also unassailable. Easter seals the promise of eternal life, revealed at Christmas but unfulfilled except through death and resurrection.  Thus, quoting the apostle Paul, “Messiah” can say what is ours to proclaim as well: “ O death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”

For my part, I love the Messiah and always stand when it is sung at our home church in Salem, Oregon – and that occurs in an annual Christmas Eve service.

I hope the Messiah could become part of Easter, too.  Very appropriate to celebrate the “Son Rise.”

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.

First, here’s the good news – many of us have survived the first 100 days of Trump’s second term as president.

Second, the bad news – survival has been by, as the saying goes, “the skin of our teeth.”

Of course, Trump, ever the narcissist, touts himself as being the best president in the country’s history.

But facts tell a different story as Trump tries to re-make America in his image as a dictator.

If you want the facts, just read Dana Milbank’s latest column in the Washington Post that appeared under this headline:  Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure.

It separates Trump’s fiction of “making America great again” from the reality of the damage he is doing on so many fronts – in America and, in fact, around the world.

When I read something as persuasive as Milbank’s column, I often devote my blog to reprinting it, with, of course, due credit to the writer.  Also, you make ask why this blog is so long.  Well, the short answer is that Trump has made so many failures it takes a long time to recount them.

So, if you have the stomach for knowing more about Trump’s failures, read on.

*********

Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure

America has seen ruinous periods, but never when the president was the one knowingly causing the ruin.

By any reasonable measure, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days will be judged an epic failure.

He has been a legislative failure. He has signed only five bills into law, none of them major, making this the worst performance at the start of a new president’s term in more than a century.

He has been an economic failure. On his watch, growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that “growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year from last year’s solid pace” and that Trump’s tariffs will result in higher inflation and slower growth.

He has been a foreign-policy failure. He said he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But fighting has resumed in Gaza after the demise of the ceasefire negotiated by his predecessor, and Russia continues to brutalize Ukraine, making a mockery of Trump’s naive overtures to Vladimir Putin.

He has been a failure in the eyes of friends, having launched a trade war against Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan; enraged Canada with talk of annexation; threatened Greenland and Panama; and cleaved the NATO alliance.

He has been a failure in the eyes of foes, as an emboldened China menaces Taiwan, punches back hard in the trade war and spreads its global influence to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s retreat from the world.

He has been a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans. He is flagrantly defying a unanimous Supreme Court, and his appointees are facing contempt proceedings for their abuse of the legal system.

He has been a failure in public opinion. This week’s Economist/YouGov poll finds 42 percent approving his performance and 52 percent disapproving — a 16-point swing for the worse since the start of his term. Majorities say the country is on the wrong track and out of control.

Even his few “successes” amount to less than meets the eye. Border crossings are down from already low levels, but despite all the administration’s bravado, there’s little evidence of an increase in deportations. Hopes for cost-cutting under the U.S. DOGE Service, which Elon Musk originally projected at $1 trillion this year, have been scaled back to just $150 billion — and much of that appears to be based on made-up numbers.

But Trump, whose 100th day in office is April 30, has achieved one thing that is truly remarkable: He has introduced a level of chaos and destruction so high that historians are hard-pressed to find its equal in our history.

He has upended global structures that kept the peace for generations. He has aligned America with the world’s despots. He has slashed the federal workforce and impaired the government’s ability to collect taxes, administer Social Security and fund medical research, among many other things. He has abused his power in startling ways, using the government for personal vengeance and retribution against perceived opponents, harassing law firms, universities and the free press with an authoritarian flourish. He has shattered the guardrails that limit executive power, ignoring laws, eliminating inspectors general and other mechanisms for accountability and oversight. He has displayed gratuitous cruelty in the treatment of migrants and government workers alike. He has used the government to undertake breathtaking schemes of self-enrichment. And he has left a large number of his countrymen angry and frightened.

To put this failure in context, I called two of my favorite historians, David Greenberg of Rutgers University and Douglas Brinkley of Rice University.

They told me that there had been similar bursts of activity from an executive before, most notably under Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose productivity at the start of his presidency in 1933 created the 100-day benchmark by which his successors have been measured. There have been similar power grabs before: Andrew Jackson, who claimed the 1824 election was stolen from him, attacking the nation’s elites after he won in 1828 and ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling against seizing tribal land; the imperialist William McKinley, Trump’s new fave, taking over Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines and pushing Spain out of Cuba; FDR attempting to pack the Supreme Court at the start of his second term; Richard M. Nixon’s lawlessness, justified by his belief that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

There have been ruinous periods before: the Quasi-War with France and the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 made it appear that the fledgling United States had failed; the period between Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election and his inauguration, when Southern states seceded and formed the Confederacy; the days after the 1929 crash, when it appeared that capitalism had failed; and the political violence of 1968. There were massive restructurings of the federal government under Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan — and Bill Clinton presided over cuts of 250,000 federal jobs.

But what Trump has done is different.

Error! Filename not specified.

A portrait of Teddy Roosevelt on a horse looms behind President Donald Trump in the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Previous restructurings of government were done with careful planning and with bipartisan congressional support. But Trump “doesn’t come in as a reformer as much as a wrecking ball,” Brinkley says. “What we’re witnessing with Trump is just raw vengeance and belittling fellow Americans and creating a tinderbox situation that makes people feel we’re in a neo civil war that could go sideways at any moment.” Brinkley also notes that previous attempts at executive overreach — FDR’s court packing, Nixon’s abuses — were repelled by members of each president’s own party. But now, Republicans are silent. “That’s the missing ingredient of our time,” he says.

Another key difference: We have been through ruinous periods before, but never when the president was the one actively and knowingly causing the ruin. During past upheaval, there “wasn’t this sense that the White House, the president, is directing the destruction of 250-year-old American values,” Greenberg says. He also notes that, because of the expansion of the executive powers over the past century, particularly during the New Deal and the Cold War, Trump has more ability to cause destruction than his predecessors did. “I don’t think we’ve ever had the combination of such a vast and extensive executive apparatus and at the same time an attempt to eliminate the built-in safeguards,” he says.

Some executive orders have a proud place in our history because they had noble aims or produced lofty accomplishments: the Emancipation Proclamation. The Manhattan Project. Enforcing school desegregation in Little Rock. But Trump’s orders are more likely to be remembered alongside those establishing Japanese internment and Operation Wetback because they are based in cruelty and in his insatiable lust for vengeance. “It’s not hyperbole to say this is the weirdest 100 days of any president in American history,” says Brinkley, “because, at its root, it is pathological narcissism.”

In the end, Trump’s 100 days, and his presidency generally, will be judged harshly for what they were not. “We remember great civilizations for their great achievements,” Greenberg says. Scientific advancement. Contributions to arts and letters. Human progress. Trump is reversing them all.

Error! Filename not specified.

An American flag is flown upside down outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland after a hearing for Kilmar Abrego García on April 15 in Greenbelt. (Maansi Srivastava/for the Washington Post)

Each week of Trump’s 100 days has felt like a year to many Americans, which is his aim, because it keeps the opposition off-balance. Let’s consider the year that transpired over the past week.

Trump thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling saying the administration must “facilitate” the return of a migrant deported to a Salvadoran prison in violation of a court order. Instead, Trump hosted El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator,” who said the notion of returning the man is “preposterous.”

Reviews by CBS News and the New York Times found that the vast majority of migrants deported had no criminal records — but they are now imprisoned without due process in inhumane conditions. And now, Trump says he wants to send American citizens to the notorious prison in El Salvador. “Home-growns are next,” he told Bukele. “You’ve got to build about five more places” to imprison them. Trump and aides have lied about the Supreme Court ruling, saying that they “won” the case. Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission’s chief, Brendan Carr, threatened Comcast’s broadcasting licenses because he didn’t like what MSNBC was reporting about the dispute.

another case, that of a Tufts University student abducted by masked federal agents and held for deportation, The Post’s John Hudson reports that the State Department determined that it did not have evidence that she engaged in antisemitic activities or supported a terrorist organization, as the government claims. And, in the latest attempted invasion of Americans’ privacy, DOGE is seeking access to a sensitive Medicare database as part of a scheme to find undocumented immigrants.

Harvard University said it would not surrender to the Trump administration’s demands that it give up its academic freedom (Trump officials had demanded changes to the school’s governance, hiring and treatment of foreign students), saying the demands “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.” In response to Harvard’s defiance, detailed in a letter by two conservative lawyers, the administration froze $2.2 billion in grants and contracts to the school — forcing the school to halt research to fight Lou Gehrig’s disease, radiation sickness and tuberculosis.

At the same time, the administration is planning an even more devastating blow to medical research: a 40 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, The Post reports, part of a one-third cut to the Department of Health and Human Services. The administration eliminated 43 of about 200 experts from boards overseeing such research, and, in case you wonder what motivates such cuts, it turns out 38 of the 43 were female, Black or Hispanic.

The administration also is threatening to block Harvard from enrolling any foreign students, and it has asked the IRS to take the outrageous step of revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status; Trump is now expressly embracing the sort of viewpoint discrimination that furious conservatives alleged the IRS did a decade ago, when lower-level officials subjected tax-exempt applications from mostly conservative groups to lengthy scrutiny. Trump’s IRS will likely look favorably on his request. It has promoted a political hack, Gary Shapley (a former midlevel official who gained prominence as the Hunter Biden “whistleblower”), to be the agency’s acting chief.

As the IRS becomes another partisan weapon for Trump, it is planning to cut its staff in half and slash compliance enforcement. The administration continues hacking away at the federal government. It is now illegally dismantling AmeriCorps, following similar moves at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Voice of America and National Endowment for the Humanities, among many others.

After a (Trump-appointed) federal judge ordered the administration to stop its violation of the Associated Press’s First Amendment rights and return the news organization to the White House “pool” rotation, the White House this week responded by eliminating the slot for all news wires, including Reuters and Bloomberg. It is moving toward an arrangement where, in briefings and in Q&A sessions with Trump, most of the questioning will be done by right-wing outlets. Separately, Trump, unhappy with reporting on him by “60 Minutes” on Sunday, called for CBS to have its license revoked.

The administration’s losing streak in court continues apace. Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg opened contempt proceedings after the administration defied his order blocking certain deportations; other judges continue to block Trump’s deportations conducted without due process. A fourth law firm, Susman Godfrey, won an order blocking Trump’s punitive targeting, which the judge called “a shocking abuse of power.” Another judge stopped the administration from “unlawfully” terminating climate grants, and still another judge directed agencies to release the funds.

In Ukraine, Russia has stepped up its attacks, despite Trump’s attempts to force a settlement on Ukraine that would be favorable to Putin. Trump continued to blame the victim in the conflict: “You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.” The Post’s Spencer Hsu and Aaron Schaffer report that Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for D.C., Ed Martin, provided commentary more than 150 times on the Russian government’s propaganda outlets RT and Sputnik between 2016 and 2024, often echoing Russian talking points; he failed to report the appearances to Congress, as required for his nomination.

Error! Filename not specified.

A woman places flowers at the site of a Russian missile strike in central Sumy, Ukraine, this week. The Russian attack killed at least 34 people, including two children. (Ed Ram/For The Washington Post)

Stock markets kept up their wild swings as they tried to adjust to the chaos of Trump’s trade war. One Fed governor, Christopher Waller, on Monday called Trump’s tariffs “one of the biggest shocks to affect the U.S. economy in many decades.” After the Fed’s chair, Powell, warned that the tariffs would hurt growth and inflation, Trump on Thursday morning posted on Truth Social that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Federal law prevents Trump from sacking Powell — but legality has not been a barrier to Trump so far.

In an apparent tariff climbdown, the administration said in a statement that it would make an “exception” and exempt consumer electronics from a massive tariff on Chinese goods — only for Trump to say “there was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced.” China has retaliated by suspending the export of rare earth minerals — essential for advanced technology — that the United States relies upon for 90 percent of its supply. As China tries to win over disaffected American allies, Trump continues to alienate them: The White House press secretary continued to taunt Canada, saying Wednesday the country “would benefit greatly from becoming the 51st state.”

Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and his family were the victims of an arson attack during Passover by a suspect who said it was because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.” But the administration, so concerned about phony antisemitism on campuses, was not troubled by the real thing. Attorney General Pam Bondi declined to label it domestic terrorism. And Trump saw it only in selfish terms: “The attacker was not a fan of Trump, I understand.”

The administration’s bizarre behaviors remained on vivid display. Vice President JD Vance broke the NCAA football trophy during an event at the White House. The Wall Street Journal reported on Musk’s self-described “legion” of at least 14 children by four women, though “sources close to the tech entrepreneur said they believe the true number of Musk’s children is much higher.” Trump Media launched a new attempt to monetize his presidency: branded investment accounts meant to benefit from Trump’s policies. And the White House physician, after Trump’s annual examination, credited Trump’s fine health to his “active lifestyle,” which includes “frequent victories in golf events.”

Is the good doctor unaware that Trump “wins” only on courses he owns?

Error! Filename not specified.

People gather for the Hands Off! rally on the National Mall on April 5. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post)

On one hand, Trump’s lawlessness is terrifying: This is what happens when a government is run not by the rule of law but by the whim of one man. On the other, it is an admission of weakness: He doesn’t have the power to achieve his aims through legitimate means, so he’s trying to attain them illegally. Happily, the backlash is building.

Harvard’s fresh resistance to Trump’s attacks on academic freedom has stiffened the spine of Columbia University and others. Law firms that reached settlements with Trump to avoid punishment because of his personal vendettas are rethinking their arrangements. They are discovering, as other corporate leaders hopefully now realize, that there is no appeasing Trump, because he will always demand more. California has sued Trump over his tariffs. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) have been playing to huge crowds in deep-red parts of the country.

On the Republican side, figures such as Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Rep. Brian Mast (Florida) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) have encountered angry constituents at town-hall meetings during the congressional recess. Two protesters at Greene’s event were hit with stun guns. A dozen nervous House Republicans sent a letter to their leadership warning that they would oppose Trump’s major tax-and-spending bill if it “includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.” That’s awkward, because the budget outline for the bill, which these same lawmakers supported, requires some $800 billion in such cuts.

The pressure on Trump and his enablers — from the public, the courts, the states, universities, advocates, businesses and the media — should only increase from here, and it must. This is what will prevent the next 1,360 days from being as disastrous as the first 100.

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.

Many of us who love the Masters Golf Tournament watched last Sunday and pro golfer Justin Rose lost to the favorite Rory McIlroy.

But, did Rose actually lose?  Well, yes, in golf where the total score counts, he did.  But, in sportsmanship, he succeeded “masterfully.”

I thought of this for two reasons.

• First, Rose is playing in one of golf’s “signature events” this weekend, the RBC at Hilton Head, South Carolina.  When I saw him on TV yesterday, I marveled that he was back on the course so soon.
• Second, a column in the Wall Street Journal by writer Jason Gay called this to my attention.  He are excerpts of what Gay wrote under this headline:

Justin Rose Did Not Lose the Masters:  Rory McIlroy captures a milestone as his friend and golf rival sets an example of sportsmanship.  Who isn’t rooting for the runner-up now?

Here is how the column started:

“In the hours after Rory McIlroy’s dramatic, curse-smashing victory at the Masters, I was struck by how many readers wrote to me not only about McIlroy, but also about the player who came in second, Justin Rose. 

“McIlroy’s rollicking, roller-coaster triumph was an emotional crescendo for a well-liked player who’d chased this title for a long time.  On this, everyone seemed to agree. 

“But also noticed amid the Rory mania was the brilliant day of golf — and the quiet sportsmanship — of the 44-year-old Englishman who’s been waiting patiently for a green jacket, too. 

“And once more, the Englishman, Rose, finished second in a playoff.”

When I was watching last round of the Masters, I was pulling for McIlroy to get the “last major issue” off this back.  But I was not rooting against Rose who has been a professional golfer for more than 20 years and always has appeared to be a model of sportsmanship.

So, I have liked Ross, too.

In the Wall Street Journal, the columnist Gay reminds us again of the value of sportsmanship – and it is a good reminder.

Here’s more from Gay:

“Rose may prove to be an exception, not only because of the graciousness he showed toward McIlroy, but also because people now know his story.    

“Sunday wasn’t the first time Rose finished second at the Masters. It was the third time. In 2015, he tied for second with Phil Mickelson behind 21-year-old winner Jordan Spieth.  In 2017 he was runner-up to Sergio Garcia after a playoff.

“Near misses like that can undo a psyche and career. But Rose turned the close call with Garcia into fuel, playing his best golf, reaching No. 1 in the world.

“On Sunday, Rose played one of the great rounds of his life.  The prior afternoon, he left the course dejected, having dropped back from contention with a dispiriting 75.  This was a bummer since Rose had started the tournament so well, with an opening round 65, good enough for first place.

“Still, Rose woke up feeling grateful.  ‘Sunday [at] Augusta,’ he said later. ‘It’s a special day in the game of golf, no matter what.’”

Well said, Justin Rose.

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 blog headline above applies to a new development that we will see today as the Professional Golf Tour heads to Hilton Head, Georgia, to play the annual RBC Tournament, which always follows hard-on-the heels of the Masters.

The new development:  Allowing players and caddies to use range finders.

I think this is a useful experiment for all golf tours that will help to answer a question that has two answers:

• Using range finders could slow up play as players and caddies measure everything.
• Using range finders could speed up play because players and caddies wouldn’t have to pace off as many distances.

If I was a professional caddy, I would welcome range finders.

Just consider if your player hit a bad shot off the tee into an area where it would be difficult to find any distance marker.  In the past, you might even have had to pace off the entire distance, which, of course, would slow up play.

Today, you could use a range finder.

Critics of range finders could contend that “real golf” requires either of two actions – (a) to walk off to measure distance or (b) to play by feel, just as past golfers did.

Range finder advocates might say that golf always is in a state of flux, as new equipment arrives and players use the new staff.  So, allow range finders.

One of my on-line golf magazines put it this way:

“The PGA Tour will begin testing the use of distance measuring devices during competition this week.

“The move, which was announced during the Players Championship in March, kicks off a six-tournament trial period over the next month.  The tour has two events this week, the signature event RBC Heritage and an alternate competition, the Corales Puntacana Championship.

“The testing period ends with the Truist Championship and Oneflight Myrtle Beach Classic.  

“The Korn Ferry Tour will also use this period to test the devices, starting at three straight events.

“Players using distance-measuring devices during competition must strictly adhere to ‘distance-only’ functionality.  Any advanced features — including course mapping, club selection assistance, slope calculation, elevation readings, or wind measurement — must be completely disabled before use.

“Violations incur severe penalties:  A first breach results in an immediate two-stroke penalty, while a second offense triggers automatic disqualification from the tournament.”

Concerns about slow play have plagued professional golf for years, not to mention me, a “recreational golfer” who plays a lot of rounds in a year.

Some of them are at my home course in Salem, Oregon, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club, where the advice is to complete a round of 18-holes in about four hours.

In La Quinta, California, I play at The Palms in the winter and, there, the advice is to play 18-holes in three-and-a-half hours, which it turns out, is not difficult, if you work at it without hurrying.  Just play!

For pro golf, slow play intensity peaked early this golf season after several tournaments featured agonizingly protracted rounds.  The situation escalated when CBS reporter Dottie Pepper issued an impassioned on-air plea during the Farmers Insurance Open, declaring the problem was serious.

Augusta National and Masters Chairman Fred Ridley devoted time during his tournament press conference last to express his concerns for golf’s slow play epidemic, going so far as to suggest it may be monitored during Augusta National’s Drive, Chip and Putt competition.

Further, the use of distance-measuring devices is one of three recommendations from a player-formed committee to address slow play.  The committee also has recommended overhauling penalty structures by imposing immediate one-stroke penalties for a player’s first timing violation — a strengthening from the previous system that merely issued warnings for initial infractions.

Third, the committee is developing a transparency initiative that will publicly release comprehensive pace-of-play statistics for all PGA Tour professionals, hoping to create accountability through data visibility.

So, if you are a golf fan as I am, watch for these developments over the next few weeks.

Slow play is a major problem for pro golf tours, so I say pro golf leaders need to move quickly to put corrections in place so more TV viewers don’t tune out.  And, I also submit that playing faster won’t harm the best players.

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 New York Times gets most of the credit for this blog headline, for it also used something similar in one of its most recent editorials.

I read the editorial with interest because I, too, have wondered how to protest the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, who is functioning like what he wants to be, which is a dictator, if not God, and, in the meantime, is fomenting a near-recession.

It’s hard to know how to protest Trump and his cronies because, if there are protests, it is possible all such protests will do is inflame Trump to do far worse.  Of course, as the epitome of a narcissist.  He and only he always knows what’s best – every time and all the time.

For me, two recent occurrences are worth reporting:

• A friend of mine took time the other day to join protests on Trump’s overreach, including with respect to tariffs.  I respected and admired this friend’s action, for it was a statement in political courage.
• My wife met with a local worker a day or so ago who was worried that she would be deported, perhaps to her former home, Vietnam.  She loves America and wants to stay here, and, to put a point on it, she is not a criminal and presents no danger to anyone.  Someone tell Trump.

Does Trump know or care?  NO.

According to the NY Times, there are ways it suggests could be effective to deal with Trump and, on some occasions, oppose him:

REGARDING TRUMP’S ATTACKS ON LAW FIRMS, ETC:  “In his attacks on law firms, universities and other American institutions, Trump is relying on an illusion.  The illusion is that the institutions are powerless to fight back and that they face a choice between principle and survival.

“These institutions do not have to capitulate to Trump.  They have a realistic path to defeating his intimidation.  Some law firms and others have begun to fight.  In doing so, they have provided the beginnings of a playbook for standing up to his attempts to weaken core tenets of American democracy, including due process, free speech, and the constitutional system of checks and balances.”

Harvard, one of the nation’s oldest and most respected higher education institutions is fighting back against Trump.  But it is costing the university millions as Trump responds by freezing federal dollars going to Harvard, even though it is true Harvard won those funds in fair competitions.

Here is how David Ignatius in the Washington Post wrote about Harvard “saving its soul” against Trump:

“Harvard University just gave us all a lesson in how to answer a bully with one powerful word:  ‘No.’

“The Trump administration tried to intimidate Harvard — as it has so many government agencies, corporate executives, law firms and other universities — by threatening to cut off government money.  In Harvard’s case, that meant a ‘review’ of $8.7 billion in multiyear grants.  The administration last week demanded a humiliating settlement that would have imposed an outside “audit” of faculty hiring, student admissions and other internal matters.

“Harvard refused to capitulate.  ‘The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,’ wrote Harvard President Alan M. Garber.  ‘No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.’

So it goes with Trump who now wants to run Harvard.

ON THE IDEA OF AN TRUMP OPPOSITION PLAY BOOK:  “Trump has signed executive orders punishing several law firms that have done nothing wrong.  They have merely employed lawyers who represented Democrats, defended liberal causes or participated in investigations into Trump.  

“The orders lack any meaningful legal argument and yet contain severe punishments.  They seek to bar the firms’ lawyers from entering federal buildings and meeting with federal officials, provisions that would prevent the firms from representing many clients.

“A crucial fact about these agreements is that they include no binding promises from the White House.  Trump can threaten the firms again whenever he chooses and demand further concessions.  These firms are in virtual receivership to Trump.  So is Columbia, which yielded to Trump after he threatened its federal funding.  The university did not even win the restoration of that funding when it agreed to his demands; it won merely permission to begin negotiating with the administration.”

INSIST ON DUE PROCESS:  “The American legal system has procedures to deal with Trump’s various allegations against these institutions.  If law firms are behaving inappropriately, courts can punish them.  If a university is violating students’ civil rights — by tolerating antisemitism, for instance — the Justice Department can file charges.  These processes allow each side to present evidence.  They prevent abuse of power and establish ground rules that other organizations can follow.

“The three law firms that have filed suits to block Trump’s executive orders — Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie, and WilmerHale — provide a model.  So far, they are winning in court.”

THE FINAL STEP – SOLIDARITY:  Finally, the NY Times calls for “solidarity, especially for institutions that Trump has not yet targeted.  The initial response to his executive orders from many other law firms has been the opposite of solidarity.  They reportedly tried to steal clients and hire lawyers from the threatened firms.  Most big firms also refused to sign a legal brief in defense of their industry.  Their meekness is ultimately self-defeating. The campaign to subdue law firms will either be defeated or it will expand.

“We are glad to see that other firms have spoken up.  Even better, a few firms — Williams & Connolly, Cooley and Clement & Murphy — are representing the three fighting the executive orders.  Corporate executives can also make a difference by making clear, even privately, that they will not abandon any law firm that Trump attacks.  The business world has much at stake.  The United States is home to an outsize share of financial and corporate activity partly because investors have confidence that the rule of law prevails here.  If political power instead supersedes signed contracts and the rule of law, American business will suffer.”

The Times closes with this:

“Standing up to the abuse of power is inherently difficult.  It can also be inspiring.  People who do so often look back proudly on their actions and are justly celebrated for it after a crisis has passed.  But crises usually do not end on their own. Resolving them requires courage and action.”

So, I return to the story of my friend who attended a recent anti-Trump protest.  His commitment is admirable.

As I reflect back on history before my time, I often have thought about whether German citizens, who lived during Adolph Hitler’s killing spree against Jews, thought about standing up to Hitler.

Easy to say that they should have done so, given what we know now about Hitler trying to do away with an entire race of people, the Jews.

Today, in America, all of us should stand up to Trump who resembles – and perhaps even admires Hitler.  We just need to find ways to stand up that achieve two objectives – the action works against Trump, as well as expresses our own inner commitments in words and in deeds.

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.

Those of us who love the Masters Golf Tournament often get effusive in our praise.

• Who doesn’t love it back in 1986 as Jack Nicklaus, the best golfer in history (yes, for me, Nicklaus over Tiger Woods) donned the green jacket after one of the greatest rounds in history at the advanced age of 46?
• Or, when Phil Mickelson, whom I now don’t like as he defected to the LIV Tour, could barely jump two or three inches off the turf as he made a birdie putt to win in 2004, then followed that up with two more wins?

Well, yesterday, many golf fans, me included, almost fainted time after time, as Rory McIlroy withstood so much pressure to win his long-coveted green jacket to gain the Grand Slam of Golf Majors.  He showed incredible resilience as he rebounded from several misses to win the tournament with a birdie on the first playoff hole.

With his final putt fell, he fell onto his knees now that a major objective had been achieved against long odds.

So, according to TV commentators, who tried to digest the round after it was over, called it one of the best Masters ever, coming close to Nicklaus’ victory in 1986, Mickelson’s in 2004, and Woods in 2019 when he fell into the arms of his now-deceased mother and held his son.

I agree.

But, now, rather than write more myself, I choose to devote the rest of this blog to the New York Times story on McIlroy’s win.  Using very apt words, the Times story tells the “whole story.”

*********

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA — A concoction of sweaty bodies and long-lens cameras was deadlocked in the upper left-hand corner of the No. 15 grandstand at Augusta National as Rory McIlroy’s 7-foot eagle putt slid underneath the cup. At that point in the day, the phoneless Masters Tournament patrons were not unfamiliar with the sound of thousands of simultaneous groans. Hearing and participating in them repeatedly, however, was not getting any easier.

A Green Jacket stood up out of his plastic bleacher seat in a frenzy.

“I can’t take much more of this,” the gentleman uttered. He bee-lined toward the steep downward staircase, his sons close behind, fumbling to button the coat that only a select group can sport on this property.

Until it actually happened, McIlroy’s chase of the career Grand Slam and the end to his 11-year major championship drought felt more like if you took the most nauseating roller coaster on earth and increased its speed tenfold. Or stuck yourself in a blender and turned it to the highest setting, making the table shake.

An opening double bogey, a water ball into Rae’s Creek with a wedge in hand, the first sudden-death playoff in the Masters since 2017 — McIlroy gave Augusta National the show it didn’t know it wanted. The patrons on site still aren’t sure that’s what they would have signed up for. Sunday was a ticketed heart attack.

“My battle today was with myself. It wasn’t with anyone else,” McIlroy said Sunday evening, a 38 Regular green jacket slung over his shoulders. “You know, at the end there, it was with Justin (Rose), but my battle today was with my mind and staying in the present.

“I’d like to say that I did a better job of it than I did. It was a struggle, but I got it over the line.”

It might have been an internal waging of the wars for McIlroy, but all of Augusta National felt it with him. They leaned with the wayward drives, hustled to catch a glimpse of the gravity-defying escape routes, and hoped — oh, did they hope — every time the putter face made contact with the golf ball it would find a hole. Just this one, Rory.

Rotation by rotation, they held their breath.

Then, a final roar that could only mean one thing: sweet, sweet relief.

In his 1975 Masters file for Sports Illustrated, the great Dan Jenkins wrote: “There is an old saying that the real Masters doesn’t begin until the back nine on Sunday.” That was 50 Masters ago. It’s still true.

This back nine of the 89th Masters began with a semblance of something that you can never trust at the place: comfort. It is almost always a mirage.

No. 10 crushed McIlroy’s Masters dreams 14 years ago as a naive 21-year-old. Sunday morning, McIlroy opened his locker to a note from Angel Cabrera, the 2009 champion who played with McIlroy that day.

The drive on No. 10 was demonless. The ensuing birdie putt to take a four-shot lead? Electrifying. Patrons surrounded the 10th green and 11th fairway 30 deep, peering through tree branches and shuffling around aimlessly to find a gap where they could see something. Anything. Amen Corner lurked. Lest they all knew, the rug was about to be ripped out from underneath the Northern Irishman.

It all happened in a blur. A bogey on No. 11 — a number that could have been a lot bigger. A par at No. 12. A 3-wood off the tee at No. 13, McIlroy playing it safe with a four-shot lead.

There’s no tighter part of the property for patrons than Amen Corner, tens of thousands pressed together to watch as McIlroy’s ball flew through the air once, then twice. He stood with a wedge in his hands from 82 yards. If he was going to screw this all up, it wasn’t going to be here, with all of Georgia to the left side of the green. Right?

Advertisement

McIlroy’s ball tumbled into the creek. He bent his spine in half and threw his hands onto his knees. There had been plenty of triumphant patron responses at that point in the day. Here, in Amen Corner’s final chapter, the gasps returned. They did not stop.

First, McIlroy’s red 13 came off the nearby manual leaderboard and was replaced by a somber 11. He paused, waiting an additional moment before heading over the 14th tee, almost as if he knew it was coming. Rose suddenly had his 10 switched out for an 11.

Tie score.

No Masters champion has ever won the green jacket with four double bogeys. Is that the kind of history McIlroy was going to make?

Every time it looked as though McIlroy had thrown away the golf tournament for good, he followed it with a shot, a moment, even a bounce in his step that added up to the opposite. He looked like he was in cruise control until the emergency brakes hit. The patrons’ fists in the air were coupled with sunburned faces buried in hands. More new red numbers caused a stir. McIlroy threw another dart. Birdie-par-birdie. Triumph? No. Closing bogey. There it was. All of it would come down to this. A sudden-death playoff against his Ryder Cup teammate, Rose.

Harry Diamond, McIlroy’s caddie and best friend since age 7, looked at his player as they headed to the golf cart that would bring the pair back to the 18th tee box once again.

“Well, pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning,” he said.

The jostled Augusta National audience did not agree. The anguish was becoming unbearable, borderline exhausting, but also the best Masters of the modern era. Either way, it needed to end. McIlroy needed to put himself — and everyone else — out of their misery.

Walk through the white and gold doors of the Augusta National clubhouse, up a winding staircase and through a quaint but decadent dining room, and you’ll find yourself on a porch. It overlooks the giant oak tree, the iconic rows of green and white umbrellas, and in the distance, if you crane your neck just enough, No. 18 green.

But today that view was clouded by a sea of anxious bodies. On the ground, some proposed starting a game of “telephone” to communicate the play-by-play on the green.

Up on the porch, you can rotate 180 degrees and you’re facing a row of white window panes. They lead to a 35-inch television, the only piece of modern technology in a 100-yard radius. A strange combination of Green Jacket wearers, off-duty broadcasters and confused writers gathered around to watch the playoff. Patrick Reed dipped in to order an Azalea cocktail. The incoming USGA president showed up. Everyone was too nervous to utter a word. No one did.

A sound of this force cannot be tape-delayed.  All of Augusta National felt McIlroy’s energy release after that 4-foot birdie putt dropped. And by the look of him — collapsing onto his knees and convulsing with sobs — he felt it, too.

One of the most chaotic final rounds of recent memory ended with pure emotion, a release appropriate for the sixth man to complete the career Grand Slam, and McIlroy shut down a narrative he wondered whether he’d ever escape.

“It was all relief. There wasn’t much joy in that reaction. It was all relief,” McIlroy said after the round, laughing. “And then, you know, the joy came pretty soon after that. But that was — I’ve been coming here 17 years, and it was a decade-plus of emotion that came out of me there.”

We know, Rory. We know.

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.

Anyone who is a fan of the Masters Golf Tournament knows this: 

Those who are on site for the tournament are not to be called spectators.  They are patrons.

But the New York Times shows up today with more banned words at the Masters.  Banned words that I did not know.

Here’s intro to the story:

“Golf Channel TV analyst Brandel Chamblee was on a Barstool Sports’ golf podcast earlier this week, and there is a fascinating clip where Chamblee reviews the words or phrases that TV broadcasters are given guidance not to utter when covering the Masters.

“They are replaced with more hifalutin expressions that are more on-brand for the event and its organizers at Augusta National.”

Here’s the list:

It goes without saying that an event like the Masters won’t ever let announcers name-check other event sponsors [For example, for a past tournament, would never be the Valero Texas Open; it’s just Texas Open.]

• Can’t say:  Fan.  Can say:  Patron.
• Can’t say:  Rough.  Can say:  Second cut.
• Can’t say:  Sand trap.  Can say:  Bunker.
• Can’t say:  Driving range.  Can say:  Tournament practice facility.
• Can’t say:  Back nine.  Can say:  Second nine.

So, there you have it.  I list of the “do’s” and “don’t’s.”

And, many of us also remember the time when golf announcer Gary McCord was told he could not cover the Masters again because he chose to utter a bad phrase – “the greens were as fast as bikini wax” – whatever that is.

“A tradition unlike any other.”  That’s the Masters and there are words you can use to describe the event and words you cannot use.  At least if you are on television.