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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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.

Myths and facts are almost interchangeable in the political campaign being run by one Donald Trump.

He never lets facts get in the way of his wild, off-the-wall proclamations.

He appears not to have a care in the world about whom he criticizes or defames as he runs what can only be described as a despicable campaign for the Republican nomination for president. In some ways, unfortunately, he is changing politics in this country, with little focus on public policy issues and extreme focus on vindictive rhetoric.

For him, the end – whatever end he wants that benefits himself – justifies the extremes of his talk. Many in the media appear to be buying into it, focusing on the horse race and the sound bite rather than injecting an appropriate level of journalistic skepticism into the coverage.

The Wall Street Journal, long a leader in espousing a conservative point of view, is different from the norm, preferring to limit the so-called “news” coverage of Trump’s extreme statements and to focus, instead, on opinions of his campaign.

Using the Wall Street Journal as a main resource, I am focusing here on some of the Trump-uttered myths and the true facts.

MYTH #1: Trump has trumpeted that throwing out all immigrants and building a wall between the United States and Mexico would solve all of the country’s problems.

FACT: Deporting an estimated 11 million immigrants and building a border wall would cost an estimated $935 billion over two decades. Plus, families in this country would be torn apart, taking children from their parents and trashing the reality of the United States as a place that welcomes immigrants. As described this week by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in her Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address, “no one who works hard and follows the laws of this country should ever feel unwelcome in this country.”

MYTH #2: Trump has praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as a credible leader by saying, “you’ve got to give him credit. He goes in, he takes over, he is the boss. It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one.”

FACT: Kim Jong-un is a dictator who kills people, including his own family member, to get his way.

MYTH #3: Trump has said Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a credible leader, “a very bright and talented man.” And he crows about being complimented by the Russian leader.

FACT: Putin is a ruthless leader who kills opponents, including journalists, to get his way.

MYTH#4: Trump has said he would make deep cuts in personal and corporate income taxes.

FACT: To a conservative, that may sound good on the surface, but the reality is different. What he proposes would reduce revenue by almost $12 trillion over the next decade, which would more than double the national debt. Of course, these revenue losses could be offset by cutting federal budgets, but Trump has not provided even scant information on how he would go about doing that.

At best, as Wall Street Journal columnist William Galston has written, “Mr. Trump is guilty of disregarding prudence, decency and facts.”

Trump hopes we will do the same.

I won’t.

Two polarities:

1. Cover all citizens with health insurance much like the mandate to carry car insurance.
2. Allow the health insurance coverage issue to be resolved in the private marketplace much like buying a loaf of bread.

Instead of dealing with these issues, Congress took an ill-advised step as the new year dawned. It sent an ObamaCare repeal bill to the president’s desk.

Guess what he’ll do. Veto it. [And, he did, even as he contended that ObamaCare is a signal achievement of his terms as president, one he will use to keynote his final State of the Union address to Congress. Plus, his veto will be veto-proof in Congress where they are not the votes to override it.]

Would have better the a vote to repeal ObamaCare if the bright minds in Congress – yes, there are some – would have sat down to carve out a reasonable alternative. Call both sides of the aisle to a round table and ask this question: What would be better than what currently exists? Then, define it and send a bill to the floors of both the House and the Senate and on to the president’s desk.

Obama might veto that, too, but then we’d know for sure what we suspect now – that the president doesn’t want middle ground solutions to pressing national problems. He wants another pelt on the wall of what he considers his legacy.

All of this might have been difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in a presidential election year. Still, worth the effort.

A both-sides-of-the-aisle solution is what should have happened the first time around instead of the Democrats-only decision on the original ObamaCare.

If Congress would have taken this kind of step, it also would have helped all candidates on the presidential campaign trail. For now, every GOP presidential candidate’s health-policy platform begins with repealing the law, but for most, that’s also where it ends.

Questions about how they would pull back a law that’s largely been implemented — and what, if anything, they would enact in its place — have gone largely unanswered in a primary contest dominated by national-security issues and the uncertain state of the economy.

A middle-ground solution on health care should contain this mandate – yes, a government mandate: Everyone should be required to buy health insurance coverage.

Think of this parallel – car insurance. To drive a car, you are required to buy insurance. If you don’t and get in an accident, you are held to account. The same should be true of health insurance. If you buy it, good. If you don’t, you are held to account.

One virtue of such a mandate would be that those with insurance wouldn’t have to pay for those without it. That happens now, thus increasing the cost of insurance for anyone who buys it.

Those around the negotiating table would have to grapple with the tough question of how to cover low-income citizens who don’t have enough money to buy health insurance. That would probably mean what it means today — increases in the ranks of those covered by the government’s Medicaid program, and incentives such as tax credits to prod purchasing.

This is not a definitive prescription for what hails health care today. But it is a call for a bi-partisan approach to solving the problem, which, itself, would be a breath of fresh air in the halls of Congress and in the Oval Office.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, a gubernatorial 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 knew my bias, you could imagine my joy when I came across this quote in Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan’s latest book, “The Time of Our Lives.”

“To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.”

Noonan attributed the quote to historian David McCullough.

She agrees with it.

So do I.

In my career in government and the private sector, whenever I was in the business of hiring for a vacancy, I focused on whether the candidate had the ability to write. That mattered because, to me, the ability to write indicated something about the candidate’s ability to think.

I often resorted to a writing test at the time of the interview, giving the candidate an assignment on the fly rather than relying on a writing scrapbook.

The question was not whether a candidate could write in my style. The question was whether the candidate could write quickly and, to go back to the quote above, write well as an evidence of the ability to think well.

Noonan goes on in another section of her book to describe the craft of writing.

“I want to take a minute to talk about my view on writing. To me, it is a full body exercise. What you write comes from your brain, heart, spirit, soul and psyche, you hold nothing back, all parts are engaged. When you’re writing you give the creative part of your brain full sway, you let it dominate, you don’t let your critical side mug it or slow it down. Later, in editing, you bring your critical self to the fore, question the assertion, kill the aside. But the point is to give your writing everything you have at the moment you’re doing it and rethink when the page has cooled.”

Good words. Writing requires concentration. It requires putting your whole self into the exercise. It requires focus.

Then, when a first draft is done, it requires editing with a constructively critical eye.

For Noonan, as she compiled her book, which is a collection of what she believes are her best columns over the years, it also required an ability to put past work in context. As she re-read the pieces she had written, she realized she might have struck the wrong tone and, if given a chance for a mulligan (pardon the golf reference), would write differently.

But, that, too, is a product of writing – the ability to look at past work and to improve and learn.

So, here’s to writing well and thinking well.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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.

Every morning I read the Wall Street Journal for at least two reasons: First, the writing is of high quality, a distinction in this era of bad writing in newspapers; and, second, almost inevitably, I find new thought-provoking ideas.

As you might imagine, many of the quotes that appear below deal with one Donald Trump, who continues, by bluster and name-calling, to confound political analysts and threaten the very future of sound political discourse.

Bret Stephens, December 15 column

The central foreign policy challenge facing the next president is how to re-establish American credibility with friends who no longer trust us and enemies who no longer fear us.

William McGurn, December 15 column

Instead of whining about Mr. Trump’s support and the stupidity of his followers, here’s to the Republican contender with the wit to try to take that support away from Mr. Trump by offering Mr. Trump’s voters a clear, strong and superior alternative.

Charles Krauthammer, December 10

Brilliant. And very economical. That is, if you think that bloodthirsty terrorists — “people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” as Trump describes them — will feel honor-bound to tell the truth to an infidel customs officer. They kill wantonly but, like George Washington, cannot tell a lie. On this logic hinges the great Maginot Line with which Trump will protect America from jihad. I decline to join the chorus denouncing the Trump proposal as offensive and un-American. That’s too obvious. What I can’t get over is its sheer absurdity.

Gerald Seib, December 16

The exchanges in many ways captured the tenor of the entire Republican race to date. Candidates such as Mr. Bush have struggled to offer conventional answers in an unconventional year. Mr. Trump, meantime, offers little of the conventional formulas or multi-point plans that once were campaign staples, focusing instead on simply offering himself as the plan of action.

Karl Rove, December 17

“The U.S. would be heading further in this direction if Hillary Clinton becomes president. This might sound outlandish, but consider that President Obama has repeatedly taken unconstitutional actions and sabotaged the separation of powers. “What the president is suggesting,” Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley said regarding Mr. Obama’s executive order on immigration, “is tearing at the very fabric of the Constitution.

“A Clinton presidency would ratify the new post-Constitutional order. Mrs. Clinton explicitly says that she will disregard the separation of powers and assume the legislative branch’s prerogative.”

Peggy Noonan, December 18

The Democrats in that time had two debates, with little fanfare, with a vibe of “please don’t watch.” It was less like public officials running for president than people in the witness protection program accidentally strolling onto a stage. In the second debate the stage was almost empty—front-runner Hillary Clinton, an aged Vermont socialist with Einstein hair, and a fit young heartthrob with nothing to lose and nothing to say.

Also, Peggy Noonan, December 18

What a year of wonders. For a good portion of it there were three Republican presidential candidates who, if you added up their polling numbers, had the support of more than half the voters—and they had never, not one of them, won a political office in their lives. On-the-ground Republicans surveying the past 15 years of unwon wars, great recession, feeble recovery and a world on fire, thought: “Who gave us this world? The professional political class. So it’s time to reach outside politics and consider other kinds of experience and attainment.”

Another wonder: The political parties swapped their longtime roles, styles and ways of being. The Democrats became the party of primogeniture, the Republicans of rebellion. The Democrats were once alive, chaotic and brawling, the Republicans staid and orderly. Not anymore. It is the Democrats who are accepting a coronation, the Republicans who said no to ancestral claims. The deflation of Jeb Bush is a huge story. With his failure to rise, the consultant class and shock-and-awe fundraising took it on the chin. Jeb was not the answer to any question the base was asking.

Holman Jenkins, December 19

Our guess is that Mr. Trump has always planned on being satisfied with making a splash and ventilating his high opinion of himself. He will rightly be able to claim that he gave neglected voters a voice and transformed the debate. Notice that he manages to maintain his jolly equanimity even when being vilified. He is not grimly “on a mission” as so many candidates are whose self-image is wrapped up in electoral success.

We could be wrong but the Trump effort is probably self-liquidating. Expect a glorious, “I’ve got better things to do than hang around with you losers” exit just about the time he would have to start spending real money to keep going.

Dave Shiflett (the ghost writer for Donald Trump’s first book), December 22

Instead he rolls merrily along, like fortune’s child, bolstered by terrorist fear and political competitors variously seen as pathological liars, empty suits or the butt-ends of political dynasties. He is also the default candidate for all who have grown weary of culture cops and bureaucratic bullies. For a real-estate guy, he seems to have the political game figured out pretty well.

Bret Stephens, December 22

We also want to turn the Republican Party into a gated community. So much nicer that way. If the lesson of Mitt Romney’s predictable loss in 2012 was that it’s bad politics to tell America’s fastest-growing ethnic group that some of their relatives should self-deport, or to castigate 47% of the country as a bunch of moochers—well, so what? Abraham Lincoln once said “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” What. Ever. Now the party of Lincoln has as its front-runner an insult machine whose political business is to tell Mexicans, Muslims, physically impaired journalists, astute Jewish negotiators and others who cross his sullen gaze that he has no use for them or their political correctness.

And while we’re building a wall around our party, let’s also take the opportunity to throw out a few impostors in our midst. Like that hack, George Will. Or John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush and every other Republican In Name Only. Or Marco Rubio who didn’t chicken out on immigration reform quite as quickly or convincingly as Ted Cruz did. Or the Republican “Establishment” and “elite”—like the editorial board of this newspaper—who want to flood the country with cheap foreign labor so they can enrich their Wall Street pals.

All of them must be humbled, re-educated or thrown out, like old-time cadres with suspected bourgeois tendencies. How else will real Americans get a hearing and find their voice? What’s a lost election cycle or two when the soul of movement conservatism is at stake?

As for what the soul of that movement is supposed to be, we can figure that out later.  Donald Trump is a candidate of impulses, not ideas. (If you can hire people to write your books you can also hire them to do your thinking.) This doesn’t seem to have perturbed his supporters in the slightest. Mr. Cruz is happy to be on any side of an issue so long as he can paint himself as a “real Republican”—the implicit goal here being the automatic excommunication of anyone who disagrees with him. Naturally, he’s rising.

Karl Rove, December 24

President Harry Truman, by contrast, thought decades ahead. The haberdasher from Missouri reformed the government to meet new challenges after World War II and created international structures that helped contain America’s adversaries and win the Cold War. Mr. Obama’s vision is limited to the coming months, to the next quarter, to the end of his term. Whenever events undermine his view of the world, he has the habit of retreating to an alternate reality. Mr. Obama is a man with an uncommonly rigid, anti-empirical mind.

George Will, December 26

If you look beyond Donald Trump’s comprehensive unpleasantness — is there a disagreeable human trait he does not have? — you might see this: He is a fundamentally sad figure. His compulsive boasting is evidence of insecurity. His unassuageable neediness suggests an aching hunger for others’ approval to ratify his self-admiration. His incessant announcements of his self-esteem indicate that he is not self-persuaded. Now, panting with a puppy’s insatiable eagerness to be petted, Trump has reveled in the approval of Vladimir Putin, murderer and war criminal.

In 2016, a Trump nomination would not just mean another Democratic presidency. It would mean the loss of what Taft and then Goldwater made possible — a conservative party as a constant presence in American politics.

It is possible Trump will not win any primary, and that by the middle of March our long national embarrassment will be over. But this avatar of unfettered government and executive authoritarianism has mesmerized a large portion of Republicans for six months. The larger portion should understand this:

One hundred and four years of history is in the balance. If Trump is the Republican nominee in 2016, there might not be a conservative party in 2020 either.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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 start of any new year is a good time to look ahead to new challenges on the public policy horizon.

Hill.com posted several for the Obama Administration and Congress this week, including the top priority to deal with ISIS-inspired terrorism. So this blog will turn to Oregon rather than focus on national issues.

FINDING THE RIGHT LEADERS IN 2016 ELECTIONS

As someone who has been involved and followed politics for more than 40 years in Oregon, 2016 would be a good time to elect leaders on both sides of the aisle who have the ability to find middle ground on pressing public policy problems. That’s where the best solutions lie anyway.

Too often, those of us who vote choose candidates who mimic our views or appeal to our worst instincts in politics – the fight, the battle, the name calling instead of the commitment to solutions. Now is the time to find different kinds of leaders.

BRINGING EFFECTIVENESS TO STATE AGENCY OPERATIONS

Current Governor Kate Brown has her hands full with problems in three state agencies – the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Energy Department (DOE) and the Department of Transportation (ODOT).

The latter, ODOT, is the least contentious of the three, in part because the administration there, whether you agree with every decision or not, has its act together. The worst of the agency offenders is DHS which has come under fire for failing to monitor contracted providers effectively, thus causing harm to children, especially children who need residential care.

DOE has made headlines threatening its very existence by fouling up state energy tax credit programs.

A test of the governor in the next weeks will revolve around whether she can get a handle on the DHS problems and inject a new level of credibility in the agency. Her chief operative in this challenge is Clyde Saiki, a long-time state government manager who has distinguished himself in several previous roles. He left his new gig as head of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) to take over temporarily at DHS, though he hopes to return to DAS where he serves essentially as chief operating officer for state government.

If the governor cannot get a handle on DHS issues, the failure could affect her election bid, though, at the moment, the run is hers’ to lose as she campaigns for her own four-year term in the state’s top political job.

FINDING WAYS TO BOOST RURAL OREGON

House Republican leader Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, made headlines recently when he told the Economic Summit meeting that rural Oregon is in crisis.

Targeting his remarks at Portland-area business and political leaders at the Oregon Convention Center, McLane asked: “Are you concerned about rural Oregon or do you believe we’re in crisis? Because that’s different… If it’s a crisis we have a rich history in Oregon of coming together and solving it.”

McLane was right to point out an important issue for all of Oregon’s leaders, including the Democrats who hail from urban Oregon.

When I was deputy director at the Oregon Economic Development Department, all of us there were concerned about the “two Oregons” – urban areas where economic development was possible and rural areas where it often was not.

My hope is that leaders will heed McLane’s admonition to focus on rural Oregon – or at least not to ignore it based on priorities from Portland and Eugene.

IMPROVING GOVERNMENT CREDIBILITY

That title may sound like an oxymoron to those who have watched Oregon state government take its lumps over the last year. Four-time governor John Kitzhaber’s fall from grace gained national publicity as he sacrificed a recently-won fourth term in the governor’s office.

Many observers felt he was tone-deaf by letting his live-in “First Lady,” Cylvia Hayes, work as an unofficial state government employee while using her status to win private lobbying contracts, which displayed an incredible – and, I guess, still alleged — lack of regard for the state’s ethical laws.

On that front, the actions by Kitzhaber and Hayes sparked a commitment to review Oregon’s public records law (ORS 192.500), long held as a statutory commitment to make most records public. And, to put a point on it, did this law apply to e-mail communications. A group of state leaders and private sector representatives (including an official from the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, a client of the firm where I worked as a lobbyist for 25 years, CFM Strategic Communications) is working to bring the public records law into the 21^st century.

The work of this group, plus the overall commitments of state elected officials, will go at least part of the way toward restoring public trust in government, though it should be said that there is a long way to go – and individual actions by government officials always have an effect on whether trust can be built, or if built, retained.

DO “JOBS” MATTER?

The word “jobs” is in quotes because, by it, I mean jobs as a political issue.

It has been surprising to me that few politicians run anymore on the idea of helping the private sector create jobs – jobs that pay salaries to individuals who, in turn, pay taxes and keep government funded, including in what often is the top priority, K-12 education.

Public employee unions are resorting again to singling out corporations in Oregon as the enemy by proposing a measure at the polls next November to increase taxes. Corporate leaders have said that, if the measure passes, some of them will take their business elsewhere.

Even a leading Democrat, Senator Peter Courtney, D-Salem, told business leaders that the union-inspired measure would spark a huge fight at the polls, one he compared to the Civil War and the ghastly deaths at the Battle of Intietam.

Overstatement? Probably because that is a stock in trade for Courtney. But his message also is worth considering. He worries about the battle and what comes of it for Oregon.

So do I! As a veteran state lobbyist, my fondest wish in the New Year would be for competing interests to find a way to sit down at a table – make it a round one – and hash out solutions, including on tax policy, that are the best for all of Oregon.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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 have come across two pieces of writing in the last few days that, to me, summarize the true meaning of Christmas, a holiday season whose purpose can become all-too-commercial, all-too-quickly.

I could write my own thoughts, but these do an excellent job of representing what I think. So, I repeat them here.

One, which deserves top billing, is from my wife, Nancy, who writes our annual Christmas letter to friends and family (which, by the way, is a tradition worth preserving).

In the aftermath of senseless tragedies in Paris and San Bernadino, here is how Nancy concluded our Christmas letter this year:

“As we celebrate the birth of our Savior, we remember that Jesus was born into a world of hatred and injustice and ISIS-like violence not unlike ours: Despots trying to eliminate rivals, Herod’s slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, even beheading…It’s all unbelievably current. We choose God’s peace within (Philippians 4:6-7), our wish for all of you in 2016.”

The second piece was written by my friend, Dick Hughes, editorial page editor of the Salem Statesman-Journal, in his column December 20:

**********

Why Americans should embrace ‘Happy Holidays’

As I left the coffee drive-thru on my way to Corvallis on Thursday, the barista declared, “Happy Holidays!”

As I headed along Highway 99W, a sign told me that wine was the perfect Xmas gift.

As I entered Corvallis, a billboard urged me to keep Christ in Christmas.

The billboard is what confounded me.

Oh, I know the concerns: By using generic winter holiday sayings and symbols, companies and clerks are undermining the true meaning of Christmas. In response, good-intentioned Americans are battling what they see as a secular war on Christmas

Despite the outcry over Starbucks’ changing the generic, non-religious design on its winter beverage cups — to an even-more-generic design — I had thought the fight about Christmas seemed less intense this year. But on Saturday, I read about the Texas agriculture commissioner who threatened to slap anyone who wished him “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Not quite the Christmas spirit.

Not quite the biblical understanding of Christmas, either.

Two thoughts:

First, Jesus Christ cannot be taken out of Christmas.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of God incarnate, God who came to earth in the form of his son Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary in a humble manger in Bethlehem.

That’s pretty heavy stuff.

Second, if there is any danger to Christmas, it’s the over-commercialization of the day.

Writing in “Christianity for Dummies” — I hadn’t realized there was such a book, although it seems fitting in our simplistic society — Richard Wagner says, “Most of the traditional customs of Christmas, such as gift giving, tree decorating, light hanging, and feasting, come from sources other than the Church.”

The early Church was not particularly concerned about celebrating Jesus’ birthday. History does not even document when he was born; Dec. 25 was chosen arbitrarily.

Neither does the Bible specify how many wise men visited Jesus, Mary and Joseph, an event that occurred sometime after his birth. This fact, however, was lost on a woman who many years ago called my mother to ascertain the appropriate color of clothing for each of the three wise men.

If I correctly recall this episode from my youth, the woman wanted to portray the wise men authentically. Good for her. However, she was upset when Mom explained that the Bible did not specify the wise men’s color coordinates. And then Mom had the audacity to mention that the Bible did not specify the number of wise men. The woman, apparently considering Mom a heretic, hung up.

Yay, Mom!

As for the X in Xmas and other references, historians indicate the letter sometimes was used to denote Christ, just as a fish was and is used to indicate followers of Christ.

I’m not fond of the term Xmas, maybe because it bugged my dad, who was an American Baptist minister. Xmas looks tacky. But it’s not anti-Christmas.

And I’m glad that stores and coffee shops proclaim, “Happy Holidays.” It’s a tribute to our growth as a society that we recognize not everyone celebrates Christmas for what it is.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holyday to those of you who are believers.

And Happy Holidays to all.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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 dictionary defines political discourse this way: Communications of thought by words, talk, conversation, as in “earnest and intelligent discourse.”

Say what?

If that is the definition of political discourse, then it appears to be a lost art in today’s United States. At least that could be said about the presidential primary fights.

According to Kimberley Strassel, a Wall Street Journal columnist, in a piece entitled “No Political Guardrails,” she contends that President Obama has broken all boundaries and both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are following suit. [Earlier, taken with this piece, I reprinted it as part of my blog posts.]

She went on: “Twenty-two years ago, my esteemed colleague Dan Henninger wrote an editorial whose subject was people who don’t think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them, as well as the elites who excuse this lack of self-control and the birth of a less-civilized culture.”

That’s how to make sense, Strassel says, of a presidential race that grows more disconnected from normality.

She points first to Obama who, contrary to his assertions on the campaign trail before he was elected, has set about to destroy Washington’s guardrails. He wants what he wants and, if he can’t get what he wants through political negotiations, he just unilaterally alters – read breaks — the law.

If Congress won’t change the immigration system, Obama refuses to enforce it. If the nation won’t support laws to fight climate change, he creates one with regulation. If the Senate won’t confirm his nominees, he declares it in recess and installs them anyway.

Obama’s approach appears to have seeped into the national conscience. You see this in the ever-more-outrageous proposals from the presidential field, in particular frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, not to mention Ted Cruz.

Clinton routinely vows to govern by dictate. Recently, she unveiled a raft of proposals to punish companies that flee the punitive U.S. tax system. She may ask Congress to support her plan, but if Congress won’t act, she says she will direct the Treasury Department to use its regulatory authority.

For his part, Trump sent the nation into an uproar with his call for an outright ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump doesn’t care whether his call is legally or morally sound? He specializes in disdain for the law, the Constitution, and any code of civilized conduct.

Here’s the way Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it in a recent piece:

“So how exactly does this work, Donald Trump’s plan to keep America safe from Islamic terrorism by barring entry to all Muslims? He explained it Tuesday on TV. The immigration official will ask the foreigner if he’s a Muslim.

“And if they said, ‘yes,’ they would not be allowed in the country?”

“Trump: “That’s correct.”

“Brilliant. And very economical. That is, if you think that bloodthirsty terrorists — “people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” as Trump describes them — will feel honor-bound to tell the truth to an infidel customs officer. They kill wantonly but, like George Washington, cannot tell a lie. On this logic hinges the great Maginot Line with which Trump will protect America from jihad.

“I decline to join the chorus denouncing the Trump proposal as offensive and un-American. That’s too obvious. What I can’t get over is its sheer absurdity.”

Ditto.

Does this lack of reasoned political discourse occur in Oregon, as well as nationally? Well, the answer is yes, but not usually in a way that generates headlines. More detail in a future post.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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.

Author Joseph Epstein caught my attention with a piece he wrote for the Wall Street that focused on this word – dissensus.

By the sound of the word, it would be possible to imagine its definition, even if it is not a word in my regular vocabulary: Difference of opinion, which, obviously, lacks consensus.

Epstein wrote this under the headline, “Dissensus, the Spirit of Our Age” and this tagline, “Donald Trump could arise only in an atmosphere that is itself soaked in political derision:”

“We are living in a time of great dissensus, when political arguments are not merely rife, but emotionally and verbally, if not actually, violent. People who are certain of the urgency of climate change often treat doubters as if they were hopelessly stupid flat-worlders. People who oppose abortion tend to consider those who feel otherwise as little less than murderers. Run down the list of issues – and an issue, recall, is a subject still in the flux of controversy – and one discovers similarly tempestuous reactions, pro and con, everywhere.”

Epstein, thoughtfully, goes on to say that his own position is to have “moderate views, extremely held.” Whenever the subject of politics come up in one of his social circles, he says he always jumps in with this warning: “I have never lost a political argument, which would be more impressive if I didn’t have to admit that neither I have ever won one.”

So, how does all this relate to Trump?

As the tagline says, Epstein contends that “a figure as deliberately divisive as Donald Trump could arise only in an atmosphere that is itself soaked in political derision.”

“At a time of international crisis and domestic turmoil, where cool heads are called for, Mr. Trump brings a hot head and a loose lip and a level of coarseness hitherto unseen in a presidential campaign. That so many people appear to be not merely amused but enthralled by his crude views is no cause for celebration.”

I agree.

Trump’s recent comment that the U.S. should bar all Muslims from entering this country is only one more indication of the depths to which he’ll go. He’ll say anything – impugning the integrity of all those running against him for the Republican nomination, insulting women, mocking those with disabilities and assuming that anyone other than him is stupid.

Cause for celebration would occur when, as Americans, we have better choices for the individuals who want to be leader of the free world. If our choice comes down to an alleged crook, Hillary Clinton, or a lumbering buffoon, Donald Trump, I’ll vote for someone else – almost anyone else.

Here’s hoping that we will have a choice between ethical leader who will lead this country with a solid recognition of history and values, plus the idea of finding the smart middle ground in the national and international issues that face us.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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 phrase in the headline came to mind as I read Kimberley Strassel’s column in the Wall Street Journal today. It was headlined “No Political Guardrails.”

She is right.

It was a number of years ago when General Colin Powell, then a nationally recognized military leader and a possible candidate for president said he not run for the nation’s highest office because he “bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.”

Here is way he put it as he delivered a speech commemorating the courageous and positive role Martin Luther King played in America.

“Martin Luther King Jr. would be very disappointed in today’s politics. We have such a lack of civility in our political life now. We are fixed on ideological poles and we seem unable to come together. Dr. King was always saying “can’t we come together, can’t we talk about these issues?” Our founding fathers argued with each other but they also knew that argument is part of the democratic process. But ultimately you have to compromise with each other in order to reach a consensus and keep the country moving forward. If all we do is remain fixed on these polar opposites of our political spectrum, the country will not be moving forward. And we’ve got to find a way through this. And it’s going to happen when the American people say: “Knock it off, stop it. We want to see a different attitude with respect to our political life. We want to see a different level of civility in Washington, D.C.”

That was more than 10 years ago. Imagine what General Powell would say today!

There is no better way to describe loss of civility than to reprint Strassel’s column. She criticizes both Democrats and Republicans for the way they have divided, not united, this country — and both the current president, Barack Obama, as well as the leading candidates from Clinton, to Trump, to Cruz deserve that criticism.

Here’s the column:

No Political Guardrails

President Obama broke all the boundaries—and now Clinton and Trump are following suit.

By Kimberley A. Strassel

Twenty-two years ago, my esteemed colleague Dan Henninger wrote a blockbuster Journal editorial titled “No Guardrails.” Its subject was people “who don’t think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them,” as well as the elites who excuse this lack of self-control and the birth of a less-civilized culture.

We are today witnessing the political version of this phenomenon. That’s how to make sense of a presidential race that grows more disconnected from normality by the day.

Barack Obama has done plenty of damage to the country, but perhaps the worst is his determined destruction of Washington’s guardrails. Mr. Obama wants what he wants. If ObamaCare is problematic, he unilaterally alters the law. If Congress won’t change the immigration system, he refuses to enforce it. If the nation won’t support laws to fight climate change, he creates one with regulation. If the Senate won’t confirm his nominees, he declares it in recess and installs them anyway. “As to limits, you set your own,” observed Dan in that editorial. This is our president’s motto.

Mr. Obama doesn’t need anyone to justify his actions, because he’s realized no one can stop him. He gets criticized, but at the same time his approach has seeped into the national conscience. It has set new norms. You see this in the ever-more-outrageous proposals from the presidential field, in particular front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Mrs. Clinton routinely vows to govern by diktat. On Wednesday she unveiled a raft of proposals to punish companies that flee the punitive U.S. tax system. Mrs. Clinton will ask Congress to implement her plan, but no matter if it doesn’t. “If Congress won’t act,” she promises, “then I will ask the Treasury Department, when I’m there, to use its regulatory authority.”

Mrs. Clinton and fellow liberals don’t like guns and are frustrated that the duly elected members of Congress (including those from their own party) won’t strengthen background checks. So she has promised to write regulations that will unilaterally impose such a system.

On immigration, Mr. Obama ignored statute with executive actions to shield illegals from deportation. Mrs. Clinton brags that she will go much, much further with sweeping exemptions to immigration law.

For his part, Mr. Trump sent the nation into an uproar this week with his call to outright ban Muslims from entering the country. Is this legally or morally sound? Who cares! Mr. Trump specializes in disdain for the law, the Constitution, and any code of civilized conduct. Guardrails are for losers. He’d set up a database to track Muslims or force them to carry special IDs. He’d close mosques. He’d deport kids born on American soil. He’d seize Iraq’s oil fields. He’d seize remittance payments sent back to Mexico. He’d grab personal property for government use.

Mr. Obama’s dismantling of boundaries isn’t restrained to questions of law; he blew up certain political ethics, too. And yes there are—or used to be—such things. Think what you may about George W. Bush’s policies, but he respected the office of the presidency. He believed he represented all Americans. He didn’t demonize.

Today’s divisive president never misses an opportunity to deride Republicans or the tea party. He is more scornful toward fellow Americans than toward Islamic State. This too sets new norms. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid now uses the chamber to accuse individual citizens of being “un-American.” Asked recently what “enemy” she was most proud of making, Mrs. Clinton lumped “Republicans” in with “the Iranians.” Ted Cruz rose to prominence by mocking his Republican colleagues as “squishes.” Mr. Trump has disparaged women, the other GOP contenders, Iowans, wives, the disabled, Jews. (Granted, he might have done this even without Mr. Obama’s example.)

Can such leaders be trusted to administer Washington fairly? Of course not. That guardrail is also gone. Mr. Obama egged on his IRS to target conservatives, used his Justice Department to exact retribution on politically unpopular banks, and had his EPA lead an armed raid of an Alaskan mine. Is it any wonder that Bernie Sanders’s climate plan, released this week, includes a vow to bring criminal prosecutions against “climate deniers”? And he would.

For that matter, is it any wonder that some Republicans are calling on the IRS to audit Mrs. Clinton’s foundation? When did conservatives go from wanting to abolish the IRS to wanting to use it against rivals? When did they turn their back on the institutional check of the filibuster? When Democrats busted through those rails, of course.

“No Guardrails” took aim at political and intellectual leaders who failed in their special duty to elevate institutions and rules. When those leaders go further, and openly break all the rules, there really is nothing left to restrain the political passions.

The more outrageous Mr. Trump is, the more his numbers soar. The more Mrs. Clinton promises to cram an agenda down the throats of her “enemies,” the more enthusiastic her base. The more unrestrained the idea, the more press coverage; the more ratings soar, the more unrestrained the idea. The humble candidates—those with big ideas, but with respect for order and honor—are lost to the shouting.

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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, 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.

Risk-taking in government can be risky, as the authors of the Cover Oregon fiasco discovered.

Government risk-taking is risky business. If government officials take a policy or program risk and it flops, they are criticized for wasting taxpayer money. If officials avoid taking a risk and a problem festers, they also get criticized for wasting taxpayer money.

Dick Hughes, editorial page editor for the Statesman Journal, says risk-taking is a good idea for government. “If we want government to succeed at a higher level, we must be willing to tolerate failures,” Hughes said. “That sounds counter-intuitive, but most great leaders also have a string of failures – ones from which they learned.”

That sounds good in theory, but maybe less so in practice. In many ways, the deck is stacked against government risk-taking. My 15 years in government service says no risk-taking, however successful, goes unpunished.

It is hard to quarrel with brickbats aimed at foolish risk-taking such as Cover Oregon’s over-reaching attempt to build a health insurance exchange website. Other risk-taking, especially the kind that might take a while to prove out, still earns “gotcha” reporting in the media. Many public managers, who are no fools, quickly grasp the odds are low for risk-taking in government that earns kudos.

There is room for reasonable risk-taking in government, but it requires planning, strategy and discipline, not taking a spin on a roulette wheel. Here are some suggestions based on my experience:

• The risk should result from a consensus. Even good ideas get better when a diverse team vets them and frontline people have a chance to suggest them. When I worked as part of the Executive Department’s management team under Fred Miller, we launched the “Good Ideas Program” (we couldn’t think of a better name), which encouraged fresh thinking and responsible risk-taking. None of the ideas were revolutionary, but many were very good and made a noticeable difference in program efficiency and effectiveness.

• Risk-taking must be able to pass what I call the “front-page test.” You should be able to make a cogent defense of the risk that would stand up in the light of front-page exposure. If an idea couldn’t withstand that kind of public scrutiny, it probably isn’t worth trying.

• Reduce a bright idea to writing. The idea may sound good until you start laying it out on paper. When you write about an idea, you will think it through more clearly –  the rationale, the methods, the answers to tough questions and the results you can realistically achieve. If you can fill in those blanks, you probably have an idea worth considering and implementing.

• Make sure someone is accountable for the good or bad.There will be plenty of people eager to crowd into the picture of a ribbon-cutting, but few willing to be seen on the podium explaining a failure. Make sure the risk has a clear chief risk-taker. Also make sure he or she won’t be tossed to the wolves if there is a failure.

If lawmakers want public managers to take reasonable risks, they need to give them the elbow room to succeed or fail and not pounce on them if they fail. They need to accept some of Dick Hughes’ advice and regard failure as a step toward ultimate success.

That may be harder to do for the news media, but at least reporters and editors can provide a context for risk-taking and explore lessons learned, not just scapegoats to blame.

Risk-taking will always be risky. That’s why you need to do everything possible to make sure the benefits outweigh the risk and responsible risk-takers aren’t skewered for taking risks.

[This blog also was published on the website of the company — CFM Strategic Communications from which I recently retired.]