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.

As I followed news over the last couple days, I almost decided to write a blog building on this headline – “the petty, hollow, squalid person, Trump.”

Then, Bret Stephens, writing in the New York Times, performed a service for me when he wrote:

“Though I tend to think it’s usually a waste of space to devote a column to President Trump’s personality — what more is there to say about the character of this petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man? — sometimes the point bears stressing:  We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House.”

Stephens wrote following a new low for Trump.  He refused to provide solid, statesmanlike language to mourn the passing of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele.  Instead, as you will see below, Trump turned the tragedy into an incredibly acrid social media post about himself.

Remember, to Trump, the epitome of a narcissist, everything is always about him.

If you read what Trump wrote, I don’t mind if you throw up.

“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.

“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before.”

Stephens writes this conclusion:

“I quote Trump’s post in full not only because it must be read to be believed, but also because it captures the combination of preposterous grandiosity, obsessive self-regard and gratuitous spite that ‘deranged’ the Reiners and so many other Americans trying to hold on to a sense of national decency.

“Good people and good nations do not stomp on the grief of others. Politics is meant to end at the graveside.  That’s not just some social nicety. It’s a foundational taboo that any civilized society must enforce to prevent transient personal differences from becoming generational blood feuds.”

I’ll give Atlantic Magazine the last word.

“Looking for a considered meaning in Trump’s words might be a wild-goose chase, though.  The simplest reason Trump posted this is the same reason he posts anything:  The man cannot resist making everything about himself, even if it’s the heartbreaking murder of a beloved artist in an alleged domestic dispute.”