Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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

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

Here’s the quote:

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

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

And, “he was a refugee.”

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

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

His column excerpts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• “The last will be first.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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

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

How many?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They don’t.

The same is true in Congress.

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

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

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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

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

Bruni’s consensus:  Trump won’t.

Here is the column.

*********

Now, supposedly, Donald Trump must deliver.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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

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

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

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

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

• Key examples of checks and balances:

Legislative Branch checks on Executive:

+  Approving presidential appointments (judges, cabinet members) 

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

         +  Impeaching and removing the president from office 

+  Controlling the budget 

Executive Branch checks on Legislative:

+  Vetoing bills passed by Congress 

+  Issuing executive orders 

+  Calling special sessions of Congress 

Judicial Branch checks on Legislative and Executive:

+  Declaring laws passed by Congress unconstitutional 

+  Reviewing executive actions for constitutionality

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

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

Time bomb?  Maybe not.

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

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

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

LETTER #1:  “Enough already.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good letters.  All three.

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

And so on until disqualification.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Here’s a good story that underlines the credibility of at least one public official in the Salem-Keizer area in Oregon, Andrea Castañeda, the superintendent of the local school district.

Credit goes to Salem Reporter for conveying this news under this headline:

Salem-Keizer superintendent fulfills her personal donation promise made amid budget cuts

Here are excerpts from the story by Managing Editor Rachel Alexander (and, as an aside, I love that Salem Reporter places a premium on local news delivered on-line every day to residents in the area):

“Salem-Keizer School District Superintendent Andrea Castañeda is on track to meet her public pledge to donate $30,000 from her salary toward local youth and school organizations.

“Records obtained by Salem Reporter showed the money helped pay for student trips to Japan and New York City, a fund for school projects, $500 for a funeral fund for the family of the teen killed in the Bush Park shooting, and hundreds of donuts for district educators.”

The background:  Last November, Castañeda promised she would donate money over two school years from her $285,000 annual salary.  Her pledge came during an initial round of budget cuts across the school district that ultimately resulted in more than 100 educators being laid off. 

More from the writer, Alexander:

“Salem Reporter asked the superintendent for a list of donations made to date and verified donations of at least $500 with outside organizations.

“Every non-profit that received at least $500 confirmed Castañeda’s donation, with the exception of farmworker union PCUN, which said it did not have donor data readily available.”

Good for Salem Reporter for reporting this – and good for Castañeda for fulfilling her pledge.

She is an excellent example of public official who promises something, then follows through on that promise.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I toyed with opening a new department under my management.  But, upon reflection, no.

Five departments are enough – the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, the Department of “Just Saying,’ the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know, and the Department of Words Matter.

See, I already have enough to manage.

So, here are bits and pieces, without a new department:

• BLANKET PARDONS:  Various commentators are saying that President Joe Biden should not issue blanket pardons to protect certain officials from Donald Trump vendettas.  That would be good advice if we were dealing with a sane U.S. president.  But, with Trump and his minions, we are not.  So, I say to Biden, Biden protect officials who have not broken the law.’

So does Jennifer Rubin writing in the Washington Post, as follows:

“Since President Biden began seriously considering an amnesty for people at risk of retribution from President-elect Donald Trump and his FBI pick (who comes armed with an enemies list), the pearl clutching and myth-spinning about pardons have spread.  Biden should pay attention to history and case law, not misinformed critics.

“The first myth:  A broad amnesty would unprecedented, an intrusion into the rule of law.  That is categorically false.  More than a dozen presidents dating back to George Washington have granted amnesty to a defined, large group of Americans.

• MIDDLE GROUND:  Where is the “middle ground” in politics?  It appears to be lost.  Two left-wing senators, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, went over-board last week by suggesting that they understood why someone would murder a health care executive. 

Say what?  Both Warren and Sanders deserve condemnation for saying that disagreements explain away insane actions like murder.

So, it is not just Trump and his acolytes who practice disagreement and revenge.  It is others on the left, which raises my question again – how about both sides trying to find middle ground.  Pardon my suggestion, for I suspect it may not be possible.

• LEAVING PRO GOLF AT THE RIGHT TIME:  On a more positive note, consider this about LPGA player Ally Ewing from one of my on-line golf magazines: 

“As far as decisions go, retiring from the LPGA wasn’t a hard one for 32-year-old Ewing.  To an outsider, it certainly looked strange, choosing to walk away in the midst of one of her best seasons on tour.  Ewing was No. 18 in the world when she made the announcement.   But this is how the small-town Mississippi player drew it up.  She wanted to go out playing good golf.”

And, in an interesting footnote to this, here is what she said: “As soon as I decided this was the year,” said Ewing, “I felt a peace and stillness. I felt like that was God’s way of saying, ‘I’m with you in this.’”

• AND THIS FROM ANOTHER ADMIRER OF FORMER OREGON GOVERNOR VIC ATIYEH:   The other day my wife and I attended an event at Capitol Manor, a “continuing care retirement center” we have signed up for, though we won’t go there for a few years.

At the event, a resident stopped me in the hallway and struck up a conversation.  At one point, after I said I had worked in and around state government for about 40 years, he asked if I knew Vic Atiyeh.

Of course I said “yes,” having worked for Oregon’s last Republican governor for a few years.

Turned out the resident knew Atiyeh, too, having seen him at an event in St. Helens, Oregon, many years ago where he learned that Atiyeh loved to fly fish.  So, this resident began tying flies for the former governor and gave him new ones every year.

A great connection on the fly, pardon the play on words.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have thought a bit about this blog headline subject since I started writing “Perspective from the 19^th Hole” a few years ago.

So far, I have written hundreds of them.

On this Sunday, as I relax a bit, I reflect on this question:  Why?

There is no one word or one phrase answer, but I add this…

• First, I like to write, given my professional background, so it is purposeful for me to keep doing what I like to do.

• Second, I have not much else to do in retirement, so I keep writing.

• Third, commenting on golf, politics and other subjects, means I need to stay connected, at least to a degree, as I keep looking for new topics and researching those subjects (where, I add, I often work with Mr. Google).

• Fourth, in retirement, I am no longer involved in dealing directly with public policy issues, so the best I can do is write about them – which suits me just fine.  And, to put a point on it, if I cannot criticize the worst president and the worst presidential candidate in history face-to-face — Donald Trump — then I write about that buffoon who, as the epitome of an egotist, thinks only of himself, and not America.

• Fifth, it is a bit of release to write what I think rather than keeping it inside.

• Sixth, writing what I think to be accurate is a good antidote to all of those who use social media for their own ends, usually with honesty and accuracy a lost art.

In the years of my blog, I have not worked to cultivate a readership.  My blog is available on-line, but that’s as far as it goes – and that works for me.

So, I tell myself, with these limited ends in mind, write on.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

In what he said was his final effort before retiring from the New York Times, long-time columnist Paul Krugman wrote this as he tried to understand the difference between optimism 20 years ago and resentment today:

“Back in 2002 and ’03, those of us who argued that the case for invading Iraq was fundamentally fraudulent received a lot of pushback from people refusing to believe that an American president would do such a thing.  Who would say that now?”

Now, I know what follows does not deal directly with Krugman’s column.  He is concerned about what fuels so much resentment and discord. 

My point, however, is to take what he wrote and, then, highlight the difference between the benefits of hindsight and the reality of the information you had at the time when you had to make a decision.

Regarding Iraq:  I would not find fault with the decision by President George W. Bush to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Based on the information he had at the time, including intelligence from reputable officials working for him, he made the best decision he could make.

It is easy to look back at Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and say it was a mistake because, of course, weapons of mass destruction were not found.

True — and none other than Bush himself, in hindsight, has admitted his error.

But, for me, this highlights a still-active tendency:  Look back and criticize decisions any public official has made based on new information.  But, if you look at the facts and perceptions available at the time of the decision, you might have made the same decision yourself.

Am I biased as I write this?  Yes.

I worked in government for about 15 years, including in relatively high-profile positions.  All of us made the best decisions we could at the time based on the information we had at the time, though we also knew that later, when analysts and critics had more information, they might find fault with those decisions.

For me and my colleagues, the stakes were not as high as they were with the “weapons of mass destruction” issue facing Bush, but they still were important.

So, I say two things:

• Give government officials room to make decisions based on the information they have at the time of the decision.

• And, if by hindsight, you criticize those decisions, give those officials credit for doing they best they could at the time.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

How’s this for a piece of political stupidity!

Two U.S. senators – Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – are now saying that “killing CEOs is understandable.”

That occurred after the brazen murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson several days ago in New York, with the culprit, Luigi Mangione, now in custody in New Jersey fighting extradition to New York.

I thought it was only Donald Trump who disdained the rule of law.  No.  Warren and Sanders join him.

Here is how a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial started:

“If you think sympathy for the devil in Mangione is confined to the fever swamps of Reddit, consider comments by Senator Warren.

“Asked Tuesday about those celebrating the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Thompson, the Massachusetts Democrat called it a ‘warning.’

Did she mean a warning not to shoot someone?  Not quite.

“’The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system.’”

Translation from editorial writers about how Warren apparently feels:

“Violence may be wrong, but it’s explainable by the U.S. healthcare system.  And copycats may be coming for the same reason.”

Then, the WSJ adds, “Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also used Thompson’s murder to opine that the anger at the healthcare industry tells us is that . . . you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed healthcare for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.”

The fact is, the WSJ emphasized, no one knows yet whether “Mangione was denied care or even what his specific healthcare complaint was, apart from a general loathing for the system.  Perhaps he blames health providers for his back pain, but that isn’t an explanation for murder.”

By contrast, the proper response to the healthcare assassination came from John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat senator.  He criticized what he called “vile” social media posts for celebrating an “a— that’s going to die in prison.”

Good for Fetterman.

All this recalls for me that, in Oregon, I represented health care and health insurance executives at the Oregon Legislature for more than 20 years.  They had controversial jobs to fill and where they right all the time?  Of course not.

But, they tried to do the right thing when the “right thing” was not always patently clear.

Were they gunned down in the street?  Fortunately, no.

And the two senators – Warren and Sanders – ought to know better than to countenance killing because of disagreements.

*********

I’ll add this footnote to get out of writing about the bad character business.

When Donald Trump, of all things, was named “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine (if there is good news here it is that almost no one reads Time any more) late night TV host Jim Fallon had this to say:

“Trump is the first man in history to be Time’s person of the year and McDonald’s employee of the month.”