PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

This is one of two departments I direct and it is open fairly often because of all the good quotes out there, written by a host of commentators.  [The other, by the way, is the Department of Pet Peeves.]

Here is a new summary of good quotes.

From James Hohmann in the Washington Post:  “Not only do Trump’s remarks in Ohio underscore the hollowness of such bipartisan bromides, they further poison the well. Why would Democrats cooperate or compromise with someone who questions their loyalty to the country?

[This, when Trump used the word “treason” to criticize Democrats.]

“While the president was certainly being flip, this wasn’t just idle talk. It appears to be part of a coordinated effort to raise questions about the motives of the opposition. The Republican National Committee pushed out a web advertisement earlier Monday attacking Democrats for not standing during the State of the Union.

“Bigger picture, the president has a pattern of diluting the potency of language. Trump cheapens the value of significant words by overusing and misusing them.”

Comment: Agree. Trump is a master of mauling language, usually to shield himself from taking responsibility for anything.

The Washington Post has reported that the word “beautiful” is one of Trump’s favorites. He’s used it at least 1,500 on Twitter and in speeches since he began running for office, according to the data at Factbase. He uses the word indiscriminately, the way a teenager might use “cool.” It is a device rather than a descriptor.

From Hill.com: “Everyone across the ideological spectrum agrees this (the shutdown tendency) is a terrible way to run the government, but the inability of congressional leaders to reach meaningful compromises has made it routine.

“’You know you’re eating a loaf of bread, yet you’re only being given the money to buy one slice at a time. It costs more when you buy things in small pieces,’” said Max Stier, the president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, in an interview.

“Congress is really responsible for failing to operate the government in a way that’s responsible from a fiduciary perspective. … Everyone who runs an organization ought to understand this because no other organization could run this way. … You need a longer runway.”

Comment: The problem is that both sides – the Rs and the Ds, not to mention Trump himself – see political benefits from shutting down government. Frankly, that’s stupid and history has proven it.

From Wall Street Journal editorial writers:  “The annual budget deficit is cruising toward a cool $1 trillion, yet some Republicans are flirting with adding another new entitlement called paid family leave. The GOP’s best hope is that tax reform can deliver at least 3 per cent growth and delay the fiscal reckoning. Republicans have to handle the urgent task of rebuilding the military in a dangerous world, but one certainty: Entitlement reform must happen, or we’ll be defending ourselves against Kim Jong Un’s nuclear missiles with Medicare checks.”

Comment: The latter line is good line and true. If we don’t fund the military adequately, “we’ll be defending ourselves against Kim Jong Un’s nuclear missiles with Medicare checks.” I don’t mean to come across as militaristic, but a strong defense is an important credential in this country and all you have to know to recognize that is the 911 attack.

From Oregonian editorial writers:  “True leaders don’t need to campaign because their actions speak for themselves. They tackle the state’s shortcomings head on and display the vision and steel to push through to a solution. Governor Kate Brown should keep in mind that her best opportunity to win over voters is by doing the job she has already been elected to fill.”

Comment: Again, excellent point. The governor can win re-election by showing the leadership she’s capable of – the leadership to tackle major problems head on and jawbone legislative leaders to join her.

From Daniel Henninger in the WSJ: “Controversies come and go for any presidency. Some, such as Watergate and Whitewater, kept going because it was possible to report events that truly advanced the story. The Russian collusion story went moribund months ago, with Representative Adam Schiff reduced this week to waving the Steele dossier as if it was new news.

“Anyone else in politics would have let the fires under the collusion issue burn down. Is it a potential legal problem? Sure. Should it be a destructive daily bonfire? No.

“Mr. Trump is combative not for political reasons but because he’s been combative all his life. In the Washington Swamp, he has found the ultimate Trumpian arena. The Swamp is his sparring partner. Don’t let the raging tweets fool you. He loves it.”

Comment: Henninger hits it out of the park as he so often does. While the “Russian story” should have died months ago, it lingers, but Henninger reminds – don’t let the raging tweets fool you, Trump loves the combat in what, for him, is an ultimate arena where all eyes seemingly are on him.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

The question in the headline can keep you up at night if you let it.

Trump is the most unusual president in recent memory if not in history of the presidency, though, to verify that statement, you would have had to live through all the others — obviously impossible.

Still, what makes Trump tick?

In the Washington Post a few days ago, an editor, Mark Fisher, contributed several salient thoughts. He was one of a series of editors or reporters at the Post who are asked, from time to time, to leave their normal gigs and think, not to mention write, about the big picture.

Fisher, has been the Post’s enterprise editor, local columnist and Berlin bureau chief, and he has covered politics, education, pop culture and much else in three decades on the Metro, Style, National and Foreign desks.

This time, he wrote:

“For a president who often sees himself as standing tall against powerful forces that only want him to fail, things were looking up (Fisher wrote last week). The tax cuts were selling well, he had gotten credit for a pretty good State of the Union address, employment numbers were good, and his approval rating was improving.

“Any other president would have seen this as a week to claim some credit (Congress passed a spending bill, with bipartisan support), do some presidential reassuring (the markets sure could have used some calming words), maybe take the high road and wave the flag (the Olympics are a fine opportunity for that).

“But, in case anyone hadn’t noticed, this is not your standard presidency, and that made a whack-a-mole day such as Friday (last Friday) nearly inevitable. President Trump’s week ended with the sudden departure of a speechwriter who had been accused of brutally attacking his wife, the president’s defense of another staffer who allegedly assaulted two ex-wives, the chief of staff’s inartful attempts to recast his own handling of that episode, and the revelation that the president doesn’t read his full intelligence briefings.”

The conclusion Fisher reaches:

“No one would argue that Friday’s tumult was planned or desirable. By most historical standards, it was monumentally embarrassing. But the way Trump operates, such days can be downright beneficial. The president learned at a very early age that what humiliates, damages, even destroys others can actually strengthen his image and therefore his bottom line.”

To Fisher, Trump always follows two precepts:

• Always double down on your position – or your opposition.

Fisher contends that, through the most trying moments of the past two years, Trump has regularly argued in favor of men on his side who have been accused of bad behavior against women, whether that was Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama; Fox News figures Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly; last week’s case du jour, Rob Porter; or Trump himself.

He weathered the “Access Hollywood” tape that many of his aides thought would sink his campaign, and he successfully batted away allegations from more than a dozen women that he was guilty of sexual misconduct toward them.

Last Saturday morning, the president tripled down. “People’s lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,” he tweeted. “There is no recovery for someone falsely accused — life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”

• Always be the focus of attention. Aides who get too big for their britches won’t be around for long.

On the left and the right alike, last week was perceived as a disaster for Trump. “A PR nightmare for the White House,” said the conservative Weekly Standard. “A mess from start to finish.”

Even inside the White House, the events seemed to call for a mea culpa. “We all could have done better over the last few days,” deputy press secretary Raj Shah said Thursday. From South Korea, Vice President Pence made the same point.

But Fisher says that’s not how Trump responds to pressure or error. He learned in the 1970s, from one of his mentors, Roy Cohn, that, when you face criticism, justified or not, “you tell them to go to hell and fight the thing.”

In 2016, at the Republican convention, after Hillary Clinton ran a TV ad in which wide-eyed young children watched broadcasts of Trump’s coarsest insults and most vulgar language, some advisers wanted Trump to ease off. He’d already won the nomination and things were going well. Why not tap the brakes and glide along the high road, they argued.

Trump instead leaned hard on the accelerator, ratcheting up his rhetoric, pressing for a convention lineup that doubled down on appealing to his base — Willie Robertson of “Duck Dynasty,” the chief of Ultimate Fighting Championship, music by Southern, white classic rock acts.

He’s done this all his adult life. In the 1980s, Trump didn’t push back when tabloid newspapers turned the collapse of his first marriage into a daily soap opera. He actively participated in the scripting of the drama, calling gossip writers, dishing out salacious morsels almost by the hour.

Trump recognized the almost unbounded power of being that model, and he recognized that bad behavior and the notoriety it generated didn’t undermine that image. For many people, it actually enhanced it.

Inside that logic, it makes sense to look away from a stock market swinging like a bungee cord and instead lash out at Democrats as “treasonous” or announce that the president would “love to see a shutdown” of the government.

Trump simply does what he’s always done — whatever it takes to claim center stage.

Many of us – me included – have a tendency to view Trump as we would view others in high-profile political positions. Not right!

Best to view Trump through special lenses — as a person unto himself –- as one who “doubles down” on bad news, then tries to come across the only one who can take “center stage.”

My question is this: Can we survive another three years of this three-ring circus with a master like Trump?

And as a footnote, Hill.com just published a list of 36 Democrats who could be in a position to take on Trump in 2020 if he decides to run for re-election. Missing from the list? Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley who appears to fancy himself as a presidential candidate, a point I have had difficulty believing based on many years of lobbying Merkley when he was in Salem. No doubt he’ll be irritated at Hill.com’s omission.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

If you ever have been in the news or media relations business, you know about the axiom referred to in the headline for this blog.

The intention: Dump bad news on a Friday when reporters may not be paying as much attention as they would be during the week.

This used to be more true in the past than it is today. That’s because there used to be something called a “24-hour news cycle.” What happened on one day would be the subject of news coverage the next.

No longer. With rampant social media, there is a second-by-second news cycle, if there is a cycle at all.

Still, some practitioners in the media relations business may believe that dumping bad or controversial news on Fridays makes some sense if you want to limit coverage. At least it is more difficult for reporters to feed off each other if they are away for a weekend or if their replacements are on the job.

Consider the Trump Administration.

Writing for the Washington Post, James Hohmann recently commented on the Friday “trash news” day for the Administration.

“Every administration sees the end of the work week as trash day, the best time to get bad stories out of the way with as little public notice as possible. Fewer people read Saturday papers, cable viewership drops off and it’s harder to get newsmakers on the phone to react.

“The Friday news dump is one of the few norms Trump has embraced. It’s the rare illustration of his self-discipline and an ability to not succumb to a preternatural yearning for instant gratification.

“In classic Trumpian fashion, he’s also taken the time-honored tradition to a whole new level. Stories that the White House hoped wouldn’t grow legs, especially related to personnel, have dropped nearly each of the past 51 Fridays.”

Based on my own background, either in media relations, or as a lobbyist, I often also counseled releasing bad news on Fridays.

One example occurred back in my days at the Oregon Department of Human Resources. When a decision was made by the director to fire the administrator of the then-called Children’s Services Division, we announced the decision on a Friday, thus avoiding the intensity of news as reporters wrote about the issue over a weekend when readership or viewership was down and it was more difficult to gather reactions to the decision.

Now, is all of this good or bad policy? I say neither. The tactic is simply a recognition of a reality of the news business – or perhaps a past reality.

Today, it matters less with a continual news cycle. So, as readers or listeners, the advice is to stay connected no matter the day of the week.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Donald Trump and his allies have begun conversationally handicapping the president’s potential 2020 rivals.

Politico’s Annie Karni reports: “Former Vice President Joe Biden is seen as someone who could cut into Trump’s base.”

One former White House official outlined a theory of the case that has gained some traction: Trump’s policies will continue to be popular all the way through his re-election campaign, but his approval rating will never crack 45 per cent — creating an opening for Biden, or someone like him, to recapture the loyalty of white Rust Belt Democrats who helped elect Trump in 2016.”

“I hope CNN has Kirsten Gillibrand on every minute of every day. Love it. Bring it. She’s easy to destroy,” the former staffer said. “If you’re the president, or the RNC, you’re more worried about someone who looks like Biden — someone who has more mainstream appeal, who blue-collar workers could identity with.”

Well, of course, many political prognosticators say it’s way too early to begin talking about 2020 Democrat challengers, at least with any clarify.

But down here in La Quinta, California, where I am spending part of the winter, I had the good fortune to see a long-time Oregon Democrat leader who has substantial experience running Oregon and international businesses. In other words, he is not a typical Democrat.

Over drinks, he shared with me his aspiration. It is that (a) the Democrats will take over Congress in the mid-term elections, that (b) they will make political life difficult for Trump in the next two years, that (c) they will move to impeach Trump, but that (d) they will not convict him.

That would soften Trump up politically for a strong candidate to emerge out of the D field to take him on, relegating him to be a one-term president.

Of course, this individual, as smart as he/she may be, doesn’t call such political shots, especially over an eternity in politics, which is two-plus years away. No one does.

Further, at the moment, one year into the four-term Trump presidency, no one knows for sure whether Trump will run again.

So much for thinking too much about 2020. But it will be worth keeping eyes on the potential Demo field so see who emerges as the frontrunner – as well as to see if that person has an agenda for being in the nation’s highest political office…an agenda that is more than just anti-Trump.

On occasion, I find myself hoping for a quality third-party candidate to emerge, one who has solid ethical credentials, as well as the ability to see the benefit of middle-ground solutions to pressing public policy problems – plus the leadership to gain followers.

Fat chance, you say. Probably. But it doesn’t hurt to hold high aspirations.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

The question in the headline is on a lot of minds these days as President Trump says one day that he deserves credit for a stock market boom, then says the next that the huge stock market slide is not his fault.

It’s been that way – taking credit or assigning debit – for years as political figures seek headlines.

Back when I was in Oregon state government, I watched as a litany of governors sought credit or assigned debit.

The best at doing neither was the governor for whom I worked, Vic Atiyeh, the last Republican governor in Oregon, now about 35 years ago. He was smart enough to know that governors of states, especially small ones like Oregon, rarely had the wherewithal to stoke the economy overall.

What he did, though, was make sure everyone knew that Oregon was open for business. Over the years, he earned the nickname “Trader Vic” for his aggressive stance in favor of enticing business from Japan to another location on the Pacific Rim – Oregon.

He succeeded mightily.

In contrast with many governors and given the power of the presidency, even with the checks and balances among the three branches of government, presidents do have the ability to prod economic growth or, in the alternative, enact policies that stem growth.

I was reminded of all this earlier this week as I read a column in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by Andy Puzder, former CEO of CKE Restaurants and a frequent contributor to the WSJ.

“Progressives,” he wrote, “are tying themselves in knots to avoid giving President Trump credit for anything positive. Take the economy. It isn’t really booming, they say, but even if it is, President Obama is the man to thank.

“The claim doesn’t add up. In 2010, the Obama White House forecast gross domestic product growth would accelerate in 2011 to 3.8 per cent” and “exceed 4 per cent per year in 2012-2014, consistent with the 4.3 per cent growth rate in the other 10 recoveries since World War II. That never happened. Actual post-recession growth averaged an anemic 2.1 per cent. And Mr. Obama’s last year in office saw measly 1.5 per cent GDP growth—hardly the springboard to our current expansion.”

Former Obama administration economists have circled the wagons in an attempt to explain away their boss’s dismal economic record as a product of structural factors rather than policy.

These claims, thus, have made it difficult for progressives to explain the 3 per cent average GDP growth rate during Mr. Trump’s first three full quarters in office. They’ve resorted, instead, to diminishing the president’s economic record by pointing to 2017’s full-year GDP growth of 2.3 per cent—relatively close to Mr. Obama’s 2.1 per cent post-recession average.

The problem for Mr. Obama’s progressive defenders is that analysts traditionally attribute the first quarter of a new presidency to the previous administration. President Bush, rather than Mr. Obama, got the blame for the negative 5.4 per cent growth during the first quarter of 2009.

“What was fair then is fair now,” Puzder contends. “The attempt to saddle Mr. Trump with responsibility for the economy’s performance during the first quarter of 2017 is disingenuous.”

A bigger problem for progressives, Puzder adds, is that Mr. Trump’s numbers easily could have been much better. Two hurricanes held GDP growth down in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, businesses were waiting to see if Congress would pass tax reform setting lower tax rates and enabling them immediately to write off 100 per cent of their investments in plant and equipment.

Puzder says “I was a CEO for 17 years; I would have waited too. This hampered fourth-quarter growth but should accelerate growth in the first quarter of 2018. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is forecasting first-quarter growth of 4 per cent.”

The jobs numbers are similarly positive. In 2017, the economy added approximately 2.1 million jobs. Progressives counter that job growth actually slowed from the 2.2 million jobs added in 2016. But job quality also matters. The Obama economy was a “part time” economy that failed to generate the full-time jobs Americans need.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people working full time increased by 2.4 million in 2017, compared with only 1.6 million in 2016. In other words, the overall number of jobs added was lower in 2017, but only because hundreds of thousands of people left part-time for full-time jobs.

One of the recent problems is the waffling Trump has done as Wall Street took wild swings down and up. Instead, what he should focus on is regulatory relief and tax reform passed on his watch that are bringing more growth and better jobs.

“It’s a Trump Boom,” Puzder says, “but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes the president should thank Obama. Perhaps, but only for setting economic bar so low.”

Well, whatever you may believe, I believe Trump should follow Puzder’s advice. Claim credit where credit is due – regulatory relief and tax reform. Leave the stock market to its own unpredictable swings.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Well, there are probably many answers to the question in the headline, but for me one lack is paramount and can be listed in one word: Context.

It some ways, lack of context always has been the case as reporters for newspapers, radio stations and TV outlets struggle to fit content into constraints of space and time. But, today, the lack of context is more pronounced than ever.

The apparent journalistic quest today is either to race for a scoop in the battle for subscribers or viewers, or to place an emphasis on the battle between opponents rather than on the context of the battle.

In a great quote from a newspaper friend of mine, he said “reporters sit on the promontory watching the battle below, then go down to the field to shoot the wounded.”

The lack-of-context problem is even more severe given two conditions – one old and one new. The old condition, especially in the TV business, is a focus on getting pictures that get the audience’s attention. The context of the picture is often irrelevant.

The new condition is the huge prevalence of “social media,” which means there is no longer a news cycle. Or, the fact is that the “cycle” is a second or two in duration.

Add to all this another unfortunate, but true, fact: In the rush to produce, reporters often get facts wrong and rarely admit the same later as accurate information comes into focus.

In a piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal late last month, William Luti, a retired career naval officer and former special assistant for defense policy and strategy to President George W. Bush, paints a grim picture of reporting on the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War.

As an aside, remember that war and the Tet Offensive? If only because it occurred so many years ago, many in the generation behind me do not know much about it. But even though I did not go to Vietnam to fight, I remember the war very well, especially because a number of my friends were fated to enter that hell.

Luti asks the question: Did fake news lose the Vietnam War? And he contends that journalists wrongly portrayed the Tet Offensive as a U.S. defeat and never corrected the record.

Luti goes on: “Seemingly out of nowhere, a shock wave hit South Vietnam on January 30, 1968. In a coordinated assault unprecedented in ferocity and scale, more than 100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers stormed out of their sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. They went on to attack more than 100 towns and cities across South Vietnam.

“The following 77 days changed the course of the Vietnam War. The American people were bombarded with a nightly stream of devastating television and daily print reporting. Yet, what they saw was so at odds with the reality on the ground that many Vietnam veterans believe truth itself was under attack.

“Despite their ferocity, by most objective military standards, the communists achieved none of their goals. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces held fast, regrouped and fought back. By late March, they had achieved a decisive victory over the communist forces. Hanoi wouldn’t be able to mount another full-scale invasion of South Vietnam until the 1972 Easter offensive.

“But in living rooms across America, the nightly news described an overwhelming American defeat. The late Washington Post Saigon correspondent Peter Braestrup later concluded the event marked a major failure in the history of American journalism.”

I thought about Vietnam this week because a friend of mine, who lived through the war, but did not have to fight there, is heading over to vacation in that country. Several other friends have done the same.

For my part, I have no desire to go there – for vacation or any other reason. For me, it was a place of war and incalculable human suffering on all sides. No need to re-live that on site.

But back to my main point. Journalism in the Tet Offensive suffered, and so did our perceptions of a terrible war. If opposition to the Vietnam War was warranted, so be it. But opposition should not have centered on inaccurate and out-of-context reporting.

Learning lessons from Tet, as well as from a host of more recent events, we need better and more accurate reporting – reporting that is accurate and provides context.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Washington Post writer Richard Cohen asks a good question in a recent column.

“…in any reading of the rise of Nazi Germany, you come to a dead stop: How did this happen? How did a nut like Hitler manage to take over one of the world’s most advanced and civilized nations? The question becomes particularly acute when you consider the jumble of criminals, incompetents and ideological zealots he had around him. One answer to the question is that others in Germany thought Hitler could prove useful.

Then Cohen goes on to draw this parallel.

“Much the same thing happened in the United States with Trump. Trump was always a poster boy of the selfish, egomaniacal, ignorant, bragging, cruel rich kid, whose mirror was the sleazy pages of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. Trump’s oxygen was the leaked item, without which he would die the suffocating death of being shown to a bad table.

“All this was known about Trump — that and his sly approach to women. But by the time Trump ran for president, he had also mounted the attack on Barack Obama that charged — against all evidence — that the African-American president was African only. This was a revolting and racist allegation to which Trump, to the knowledge of those who have recently asked him about it, still clings. The man’s true religion is a farrago of conspiracy theories. He believes, sincerely, in the unbelievable.”

For my part, I have drawn Trump parallels to Hitler before and rested uneasy then as now with the perception. And, then, I made what could be called a mistake last month by watching a program on the History Channel outlining the downfall of Hitler near the end of World War II.

It was an excellent program, but, for me, the mistake was that it was a reprise of the incredibly vicious regime of Hitler which remind me of a perspective I had more than a year ago: Comparisons between Hitler and Trump.

Unsettling? Yes!

Trump swept into office in a way similar to the process by which Hitler took over post World War I Germany.

Columnist Eugene Robinson has provided a list of comparisons between Hitler and Trump:

• Like Hitler, Trump has watched approvingly as his followers, during the election campaign, used violence to silence hecklers, dissenters and protesters.
• Like Hitler, Trump offers few real plans or strategies for confronting the nation’s challenges, giving voters instead the assurance that he, by force of personality alone, will conquer those challenges.
• Like Hitler, Trump presented the electorate a scapegoat for its fears and vulnerabilities. Hitler gave his people the Jews. Trump has given his the Muslims.
• Like Hitler, Trump proposes to register, surveil and restrict the scapegoat populace. Nor, like Hitler, is he overly concerned with the niceties of civil or human rights.

And, this from Robinson: “It all brings home something that has become glaringly obvious: While many of us have lamented Trump’s improbable rise to political prominence, the real problem is not him and never was. Rather, the problem is that thing deep down in some of us that responds to him, that small, primeval thing so filled with uncertainty, fear and fury that it will suspend both logic and compassion to worship a man whose very name has become a symbol of all that is hateful and violative of American ideals.”

No, Trump is not Hitler. Hitler was a singular figure who committed a singular crime. But Trump’s dominance of the Republican field during the campaign and his first year in office offer vivid evidence of the depth of alienation that he has both created and capitalized upon.

His use of the word “treason” to describe Democrats who did not applaud for him in his State of the Union speech is only the latest over-the-top utterance from this president.

The fact that Hitler’s fascism was able to steal the hearts and minds of Germans makes you ask yourself how a supposedly enlightened nation could have fallen for the lie.

That makes me wonder how we, as Americans, will reconcile ourselves to Trump’s conduct whether or not it smacks one of the most reviled figures in history, Hitler.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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 am not sure I need to add my voice to the chorus of those analyzing President’s Trump’s first State of the Union speech, but “need” doesn’t drive this response – “wanting” to provide own comments does.

First, one news outlet even catalogued how many times Trump used a superlative word – a word such as best – in his 80-minute speech, comparing his total with other presidents. Too much analysis, too quickly and too superficial, I say.

Last night after the speech, one of the best pieces of analysis I saw came from Republican consultant Steve Schmidt. With a near frown on his face, he said he thought the speech underscored the fact that were two realities.

One was Trump’s attempt to set a tone of bi-partisanship and cooperation, even though some Democrats appeared to question the veracity of the offer.

The other reality, Schmidt said, was that the speech was given against a backdrop of a year of almost constant tweeting from the president, which continues to threaten almost of all of his accomplishments.

Schmidt, for one, said we should believe the State of the Union only if we see now a different Trump, one who follows up on his pleas for cooperation with the same attitude.

For me, I would add that Trump continues to strike me as an actor on a stage, albeit a reality show stage.

He says and does one thing in the first act and, then, enters the second act without regard to the first.

This time, the first act was Trump’s first year in office when he flouted the normal decorum of the presidency, but went far beyond decorum to lobby grenades via twitter against almost anyone.   To paint the picture of two Trumps, one news outlet last night said his tweets had cast aspersions on 83 Democrats, including Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, whom Trump labeled “crying Chuck.”

As I listened to the speech last night, it was almost as if the first year of the Trump presidency had not occurred. Portions of the speech would have been more appropriate for an inauguration where he called Americans to work together for the common good.

To no one’s surprise, Democrats were not impressed by Trump’s speech.

In one case, Representative Joseph Kennedy, delivering one of six Democrat responses, lamented the “fault lines of a fractured country.” He said the Trump Administration places outsize importance on “your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size. They are turning life into a zero-sum game where, in order for one to win, another must lose.”

Who knows which version – Trump one, Trump two or the Democrat criticism – will carry the day?

For me, I try to remember that a State of the Union speech is only a moment in time, not the full story. That will be written by all us if we aspire to a better America, one inclusive of everyone who shares the American dream.

That includes Trump as we watch whether his daily actions measure up to rhetoric.

Wall Street Journal editorial writers put it this way this morning: “The recurring evidence of the last year is that a disciplined performance like Trump’s on Tuesday’s is no guarantee of future comportment, but his presidency and country will be better off if it is.”

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And this footnote. Several news outlets are reporting that Oregon’s junior senator, Jeff Merkley, still holds aspirations of running for president next time around. That’s hard for me to believe, given my record with Merkley when he was an elected official in Oregon who behaved himself as if he knew every answer to every question and assumed anyone trying to lobby him was bereft of honesty.  Talk about being self-righteous!  On the tube last night, it was interesting, though not surprising, that Oregon’s two senators, Merkley and Ron Wyden, apparently preferred to sit on their hands without offering any support to anything Trump said. Perhaps that’s just what the minority does in all such speeches, frowning all the way.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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.

Why, you may ask, do I open this department from time to time?

Well, there are at least two reasons:

• First, many of those who write are smarter than I am, so I benefit from their perspectives and want to share the benefit.
• Second, the quotes prompt me to think from a broader perspective than just my own, which is a good thing for all of us.

So, the Department, one of two I direct, is open again.

From Wall Street Journal editorial writers:  “The ‘secular stagnation’ thesis is having a bad year. Readers will recall that this idea, popularized by former Obama White House economist Larry Summers, held that America is fated to endure slow economic growth. This conveniently justified the Obama era’s historic slow growth as an inevitable deus ex machina, and Mr. Summers’s policy advice was for government to borrow more money to spend on public works.

“A year after the Obama economists left town, stagnation may be following them back to Harvard. The Commerce Department announced Friday that the U.S. economy grew 2.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, below what most economists expected but the third straight quarter of solid growth.”

Comment: Economic growth is one result of having Republicans, including President Donald Trump, in charge in Washington D.C. as they surmounted Democrat opposition to produce the first major tax reform in 30 years. One hopes that Trump will allow the positive results to rule rather than denigrating the status with his pompous tweets.

From Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal:  “Yet if Mr. Booker doesn’t understand the hell that migrants often leave, Mr. Trump doesn’t understand the value they bring with them. The president doesn’t want the U.S. to take in so many ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ as Emma Lazarus called them in her famed 1883 poem, ‘The New Colossus.’ He prefers a merit-based system that would award points for attributes like education, skills and English-language proficiency.

“This is not racism, and providing that Mr. Trump doesn’t sharply cut immigration at the same time, it is not nativism. But it is likely a mistake. The U.S. has been built on the hard work of hungry migrants willing to make sacrifices for a future generation. They are ambitious risk-takers like none other.”

Comment: Columnist O’Grady makes several good points about the status of the immigration debate in the nation’s capitol. When you hear the diatribes from both sides, just remember that this nation was built on the backs of immigrants who, along with native Americans, produced a great country, as even as both sought a better life for themselves.

And, I say this has more than a person of Norwegian heritage because, of course, Trump says he wants to welcome more Norwegians to this country.

James Hohmann in the Washington Post as he covered a Charles Koch group-led meeting in Southern California:  “Now the network’s donors realize that their fortunes are tied to Trump, at least to some degree. His policies have been better than they expected, but his personal behavior has been worse. There’s quiet exasperation and palpable concern that the president’s reality-TV antics and racially charged statements could wind up generating a backlash that taints their brand and sets back their cause.

“’I’m not a fan of his style of doing things,’ said Bill O’Neill, the retired president of Leaseway Transportation, during a cocktail reception Sunday night. ‘I think it hurts him and hurts some of the causes he supports. I think his style gets in the way, but I’ve been trying to look beyond that.’”

Comment: The Koch family has come in for substantial criticism over the years, much of it from the left, which cannot tolerate the involvement of the family in politics. I don’t know about all things Koch, of course, but the point above – “There’s quiet exasperation and palpable concern that the president’s reality-TV antics and racially charged statements could wind up generating a backlash that taints their brand and sets back their cause” – is worth noting.

Trump’s antics threaten to jeopardize various public policy successes in the last year. It’s those successes – successes labeled by me from my just right-of-center centrist persuasion – that should carry the day in the mid-term elections.

Who knows if they will, especially with the reality TV host in charge.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This 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 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 of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and 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 direct two departments – the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering. I have full and complete authority to run each as I see fit.

So, today, I am opening the Department of Pet Peeves.

1. “Essential government services:” Will someone please tell me what it means for a government program to be “essential?”  If programs are not essential, then why do they exist?  Now, I suspect the reason for the term is to find a way to divide government services into categories from the most important to the less important.  But, still, the term “essential” — or “non-essential” — conveys a terrible impression to the general public.

So, I say, change the name.

2. Fake news: I wish there was a better definition for this term, a relatively new one in politics. When President Trump uses it, as he did in Davos, Switzerland yesterday (in relation to reports that, at one point, he directed his general counsel to fire Robert Mueller), he probably means that he doesn’t like what the media is reporting.

But, to me, a former journalist, fake news means something else. It refers to what happens in society today when folks distribute “news” over social media which is definitively not true. They do it only to get a rise out of readers.

As I have said before in this blog, the definition of “news” is difficult to pinpoint in society today. But, for me – remember I am a former journalist — news is what an editor or publisher specifies it to be.

This was driven home to me many years ago when I was applying for job in Salem as assistant director of the, then, Department of Human Resources. If I got the job, one of my responsibilities would be to handle media relations for the Division of Corrections, an administrative arm including all of the state’s prisons (then there were only three, compared to 14 today), as well as parole and probation services. Today, Corrections is a separate department of state government.

The division director, Bob Watson, who became a good friend when I got the job, asked me what “news” was during my interview. I gave him what I considered to be a good answer then – and it is still true today. It’s what an editor or publisher specifies it to be.

So, Trump, you are wrong about “fake news.”

3. Believing the hospital and insurance taxes are new ones: The recent public vote on the hospital and health insurance taxes included a wrong fact – or at least one out of context. It was that the taxes are somehow new ones.

No.

They were first instituted in 2003. The goal was to create a pot of state money that could serve to garner federal matching funds under the Medicaid program. More than 40 states have engaged in this matching fund scheme, which is entirely legal under federal law.

I lobbied the tax issue for more than 10 years as I represented Providence Health System, which, today as in 2003, supported the taxes as a way to fund care for low-income Oregonians under Medicaid.

I have had my own questions about this tax over the years, but, as they say, it is what it is – and that is a compromise. The definition of the term is that no one likes all of its aspects, but it is the best one can do under the circumstances.

Opponents of the tax this time around portrayed the phrase “hold the possible hostage in pursuit of the perfect,” which I add is almost never possible.

The good news is that tax opponents lost time around, but it remains a goal for the legislature to design an approach for the future that is fair and taxes the widest swath of payers – which, for me, is the definition of fair. For now, Oregon voters have given the legislature more time to do the deed.