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 borrowed this headline from a column by Dana Milbank that appeared in the Washington Post.

I toyed with building off the column to write another personal blog.  But the more I thought about it the more sense it made to reprint Milbank’s column intact.  It is that good, for it chronicles the stupid errors made across the board by Donald Trump and his minions.

It could have fit under another blog headline by me a few weeks ago – this is an administration run by amateurs.

Here is Milbank’s column.

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It Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.

There is no sanctuary from Trump administration buffoonery.

On May 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a “comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions.” She was “exposing these sanctuary politicians” because they are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”

But it immediately became clear that the list of more than 500 states, counties and cities was riddled with errors: misspellings, cities and counties mistaken for each other, and places that don’t exist. Cincinnati became “Cincinnatti,” Campbell County (Kentucky) became “Cambell” County, Greeley County (Nebraska) became “Greenley” County, Takoma Park (Maryland) became “Tacoma” Park, while “Martinsville County” (Virginia) was invented. And so on.

Worse, scores of the “sanctuary politicians” she called out turned out to be leaders of MAGA counties and towns with no sanctuary policies on their books. Complaints poured in from Trump allies across the country. “You don’t have that many mistakes on such an important federal document,” said Pat Burns, the Trump-backing mayor of the right-wing stronghold of Huntington Beach, California, mislabeled as a sanctuary city.

He told the Associated Press that “somebody’s got to answer” for this “negligent” behavior.

Good luck with that. The only answer was to disappear the list this week, leaving behind a “Page Not Found” error.

Such a massive screwup hadn’t happened since … well, the previous week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to the White House and released his ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” report full of citations of studies that don’t exist, the product of AI hallucinations.

This, in turn, was reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout, which targeted an island full of penguins and other unpopulated or sparsely populated corners of the globe — and raised taxes on most of the world based on a math error.

And these, of course, were on top of the “mistakes” that led Trump officials to share war plans with a journalist, to deport people protected by court order, to launch a destructive fight with Harvard University, to fire and then attempt to rehire thousands of crucial federal workers, to cancel and then reinstate various vital government functions, and to misstate, often by orders of magnitude, the alleged savings from its cost-cutting attempts.

Trying to make sense of any of this? Page Not Found.

Nearly five months into this reign of error, the mistakes are multiplying. It becomes more obvious each week that Trump and his aides are just not good at this governing thing.

This week brought the spectacular crack-up of Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk — and with it the prospective implosion of the House-passed tax and spending bill, the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda. Musk blasted the bill, which piles up another $2.4 trillion in federal deficits, as a “disgusting abomination” and launched a “KILL the BILL” campaign that escalated wildly Thursday into claims that Trump only won the election because of Musk, that Trump’s tariffs will cause a recession and that Trump “is in the Epstein files” — along with an endorsement of impeaching Trump.

A “very disappointed” Trump responded that Musk “just went CRAZY!” because Trump “asked him to leave” and “took away his EV Mandate” — and the president threatened to terminate Musk’s government contracts, causing Tesla to shed $152 billion in market value.

“It’s like mommy and daddy are fighting,” Representative Eric Burlison (R-Missouri) told reporters at the start of the spat. Now members of the House, including Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and various members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, are rushing to condemn the bill they just voted for.

Republican lawmakers attacked each other as “pathetic.” Far-right senators such as Ron Johnson of Wisconsin joined in condemnation of the “immoral” and “grotesque” bill. The White House accused these allies of “not having their facts together.”

Then there were the quieter moments of incompetence.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, in testimony on Capitol Hill, seemed not to know what the Tulsa race massacre was (“I’d like to look into it more and get back to you”), and she drew a blank on Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to integrate schools in the South (“I will look into it and get back to you”).

She also testified about savings of $1 trillion that would come from eliminating a program to help poor kids attend college (actual amount: $12 billion), and she flubbed a question about where American schoolchildren ranked on tests of math and reading.

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In the White House briefing room, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if she had a reaction to the results of the South Korean election. “Yes, we do,” she said, looking through papers. “In fact, let me find it here for you.” (Pause.) “It should be somewhere in here.” (Pause.) “Thank you.” (Pause.) “Um, we do not. But I will get you one.”

But nobody has fumbled as frequently as Noem in recent days. Officially, she is in charge of protecting us from terrorists and planning for natural disasters. In practice, she has been on a months-long cosplay adventure: riding a camel and wearing a headscarf in the Middle East; posing in full tactical gear while pointing an M4 muzzle at the head of an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent; displaying her Rolex while standing in front of deported prisoners in El Salvador; joining an immigration raid in ICE hat and bulletproof vest; wearing firefighting gear and carrying a hose; donning an aviator jacket and sitting at the controls of a C-130; wearing a cowboy hat while on horseback at the border; and so on.

Last week, a day before she issued her error-plagued list of “sanctuary jurisdictions,” she made a startling announcement: “Thanks to our ICE officers,” she wrote, an “illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump is behind bars.”

The statement included a photo of the alleged would-be assassin and one of the letters he was accused of writing, which said, “We are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans.” But it was all a ruse. Authorities said another man confessed to writing the letters in an attempt to frame the migrant Noem accused. Instead of correcting her error, Noem left the false accusation on social media and the DHS website.

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In another blunder, ICE agents forced their way into the district office of Representative Jerry Nadler (D-New York) and handcuffed one of his staffers who resisted. The agents claimed that Nadler’s office was “harboring rioters” — but they found no such people.

The administration, in a court filing last week, blamed “a confluence of administrative errors” by ICE for the deportation of a migrant whose removal had been blocked by a court order. This was at least the fourth time the administration had done such a thing, and not the first time it had claimed an “administrative error” was the reason.

On Monday, another part of DHS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, picked up the blunder baton. Its director, David Richardson, left staff “baffled” at a briefing when he said “he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season.”

Richardson, who has no experience in emergency response, got the job when the previous director was fired a day after testifying to Congress that he didn’t think FEMA should be abolished.

The administration said Richardson’s surprise upon learning that there is such a thing as a hurricane season was a “joke.” No doubt there are gales of hilarity blowing through the Southeast right now.

Trump, at a town hall this spring, was asked what mistakes he had made in his first 100 days. He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’ll tell you, that’s the toughest question I can have because I don’t really believe I’ve made any mistakes.” The audience laughed.

Even by then, the administration had already racked up an impressive catalogue of maladministration.  The administration accidentally canceled Ebola prevention efforts, rescinded jobs for the Veterans Crisis Line, and fired people working on bird flu and safeguarding nuclear weapons.

It claimed to have eliminated an $8 billion contract that was actually worth $8 million. Confusing Gaza Province in Mozambique with Gaza in the Middle East, it purported to have exposed a program that donated condoms to Hamas. It “mistakenly” gave Musk’s team the ability to alter a federal payments database.

It launched a civil rights probe of the “University of Tulsa School of Medicine,” which doesn’t exist. It inadvertently appointed the wrong person as acting director of the FBI. It “mistakenly removed” a web page honoring Jackie Robinson. It accidentally released Social Security numbers along with the JFK files and sent an unclassified email with the names of CIA hires.

The list went on — and it keeps getting longer. On Wednesday night, Trump released a video statement citing “the recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado” to justify an expanded travel ban he was imposing on 19 countries, many in Africa. But the man charged with the antisemitic attack in Boulder was from Egypt — which isn’t on Trump’s list.

On government spending, Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency had promised savings of as much as $2 trillion from their efforts. But now Musk is gone, and when the White House sent its first round of proposed cuts to Congress this week, it was for all of $9.4 billion, or about 0.01 percent of federal spending. “There are no DOGE cuts,” Trump ally Steve Bannon fumed on his podcast, blaming Musk for giving “false hope.”

DOGE, rather than making the government more efficient, created “layers of new red tape” and caused “significant lags in work in some agencies, notably Social Security.” Musk, for his part, found it necessary to assert that “I am NOT taking drugs!” after the New York Times reported that he took so much ketamine he had bladder problems.

On trade, Trump adviser Peter Navarro had said he wanted to secure “90 deals in 90 days.” But nearly 60 days later, Trump has secured only one — a vaguely phrased framework with Britain that still hasn’t been made public. Trump has reignited tensions with China and doubled steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 per cent.

U.S. automakers may be forced to shut some car production within weeks because they can’t get rare earth minerals from China. One closely watched payroll survey found that private-sector job creation came to a virtual halt in May. Yet Trump, in Pittsburgh last week, boasted that he “cut the trade deficit in half.” He neglected to mention that this was because he had doubled the trade deficit in the previous months.

In foreign affairs, the administration has proposed a nuclear deal that would allow Iran to continue in the short term to enrich low levels of uranium.  The American offer “is similar in many key respects” to the Obama administration’s Iran deal — which Trump called “the worst deal ever.”

At the same time, the world is bracing for the major attack on Ukraine that Vladimir Putin is threatening in retaliation for drone strikes that hit Russian airfields. Trump now likens the war to “two young children fighting” and to a hockey game. But fear not:  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is on the case. He has ordered that the Navy remove the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from one of its ships, and he is considering doing the same for vessels honoring Thurgood Marshall and Harriet Tubman.

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Evidently frustrated by the lack of results, Trump and his aides are turning against natural allies. With its mass deportation effort stalled, the White House unloaded on top ICE officials. Trump aide Stephen Miller summoned 50 of them to Washington for an “emergency” meeting at which, the Washington Examiner reported, he “ripped into everybody.”

And with judges appointed by presidents of both parties continuing to block Trump’s executive orders, Trump lashed out at the conservative Federalist Society for supposedly duping him into naming insufficiently MAGA judges during his first term. He called the group’s co-chairman, Leonard Leo, a “sleazebag” and a “bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America.”

Of course, it’s easier for Trump to blame others than to accept that the failures are more likely attributable to his own bungling. Among this week’s errata: He withdrew his nominee to be NASA administrator on the eve of the confirmation hearing, even though the candidate had broad support. The head of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, whom Trump claimed to have fired last week, was found still to be on the job this week.

The Post reported that subscriptions to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are down 36 per cent since Trump took over the organization with a promise to make it “GREAT AGAIN.” The administration threatened to revoke Columbia University’s accreditation — even though the Ivy League school had already acceded to Trump’s demands. And Trump needled the German chancellor in the Oval Office, telling him D-Day was “not a pleasant day for you.”

Trump has so little interest in the details of national security that he has received the President’s Daily Brief, a summation of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence, only 14 times so far (compared to 90 by Joe Biden at this point in his presidency). It’s so worrisome that, NBC News reports, intelligence officials are talking about reimagining the PDB so it looks more like a Fox News broadcast.

But Trump gets his intelligence from other sources. This week he reposted a message on Truth Social asserting that Biden was “executed in 2020” and replaced by “robotic engineered soulless mindless entities”; Trump later ordered an investigation into the “conspiracy” of Biden’s “cognitive decline.” He also shared a post about a House bill that would rename the D.C.-area transit system from WMATA to WMAGA and its Metrorail to the “Trump Train.”

It’s a great idea. Qatar will donate the subway cars, which will be powered by coal. Passengers will pay for fares with cryptocurrency after first showing proof of citizenship. And the trains will reverse themselves regularly and without warning — never quite reaching their original destination.

*********

Plus, this footnote:

Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who compete for having the largest egos in the world, are arguing aggressively with each other.

On social media:

• Musk now says he opposes “Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill,” and wants Trump to be impeached.

• Not to be out-done, Trump now says he will now take away all Musk’s federal contracts.

My view? 

They deserve each other.

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

Many of us who are watching Donald Trump turn this country into his personal playground have grappled with the posit in this blog headline.

There is no magic answer.

Some possibilities:

• Trump practices retaliation, going after those he hates simply because they have opposed him in the past. 

• Trump goes after those he feels have not appropriately honored him. 

• Trump acts before he thinks, which is why he is being called “The TACO President,” which stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” an acronym which you could imagine riles Trump.

On this notion – acting before he thinks – Thomas Friedman in the New York Times used that reality to write a new column this week.  It appeared under this headline:  “Trump’s Gilded Gut Instinct.’

Here is how Friedman started his column:

“Wall Street analysts recently began joking that the best way to predict the behavior of Trump — and make money in the process — was by practicing the  ‘TACO trade,’ which stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out.’  You can always bet on Trump rolling back a reckless tariff.

“This mocking of Trump’s inconsistency, which drives him nuts — “Don’t ever say what you said,” he told a reporter who asked him about it — not only is accurate but also deserves to be more widely applied.”

As examples of chickening out, Friedman cites:

• One day he is pushing Ukraine away; the next day he is shaking Ukraine down for its minerals; the next day Ukraine is back in the fold.
• One day Vladimir Putin is Trump’s friend; the next day he’s “crazy.”
• One day Canada will be the 51st state; the next day it is the target of tariffs.
• One day he brags that he hires only “the best” people; the next day more than 100 experts at the National Security Council are pushed out just weeks after many were hired.
• One day the president hosts a gala at his Virginia golf club for the biggest buyers of his meme coin, who spent a combined $148 million for the chance to hear him give a talk standing behind the presidential seal.  The next day the White House spokeswoman suggests it’s not corruption because the president was “attending it on his personal time.”

Friedman puts it this way:

“Trump is governing by unchecked gut impulses, with little or no homework or coordination among agencies.  He respects no real lines of authority, has his golfing buddy (Steve Witkoff) act as  Secretary of State and his Secretary of State (Marco Rubio) act as his ambassador to Panama.  He compels anyone who wants to stop him to take him to court, while blurring all lines between his legal duties and personal enrichment.”

What this telling us, Friedman says, is that “we are not being governed anymore by a traditional American administration…we are being governed by the Trump Organization. Inc.

“In Trump II, the president is unchained and running the U.S. government exactly the way he ran his private company:  Out of his hip pocket and with only the markets or the courts able to stop him.” 

I add that markets or courts don’t usually stop Trump.  He just ignores both.

More from Friedman:

“Weeks after taking office, Trump announced a series of global tariffs without any serious consultation with the U.S. auto industry.  Along the way, he discovered that only about one-third of the parts of the popular Ford F-150 are made in America and cannot be replaced anytime soon.  The tariffs have been such a blow to the whole auto industry that Ford, General Motors and Stellantis announced they could not give earning predictions for the rest of 2025, citing tariff uncertainty and possible supply-chain disruptions.

“Then China reacted predictably to Trump’s 145 per cent tariffs on all Chinese exports to America.  Beijing abruptly halted exports of rare-earth magnets that go into U.S.-made cars, drones, robots and missiles.  If Trump doesn’t find a way to strike a deal (“chicken out”) on some of his China tariffs, U.S. car factories may have to cut back production in the coming days and weeks.

“It gets worse.  His ridiculous right-wing woke obsession with destroying the U.S. electric vehicle industry that President Joe Biden was trying to build up undermines U.S. efforts to compete with China in electric batteries.  Batteries are the new oil; they will power the new industrial ecosystem of A.I.-infused self-driving cars, robots, drones and clean tech.”

Then, Friedman goes to a phrase that, to me, explains exactly how Trump acts – “fire, ready, aim.”

It’s a phrase I often used when I was a lobbyist and how I saw how various legislators react to proposals before them.  They criticized a proposal before they had reviewed it.  Fire.  Ready.  Aim.

To conclude, Friedman writes:

“In sum, what you are seeing from this Trump II administration, and its bended-knee Congress, is a dangerous, undisciplined, intellectually inconsistent farce that we will pay dearly for in the future.  Major geo-economic moves are being made by one man who has done no homework, modeling or stress-testing and has fostered little apparent interagency process, with no congressional oversight or apparent reference to history.

“If you think this is not dangerous, just keep in mind that the Trump Organization, Inc. over the years filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six different businesses.  There was a reason for that:  The operating style and values of its boss.”

So, now I am among those who are losing sleep over Trump, not to mention those minions who help him destroy America by creating his own autocracy.

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.

Another blog about slow play on a golf course.

Yes, this is a hot-button for me.

For this blog headline, I borrowedfrom the Wall Street Journal which ran an excellent story about what one golf course is doing to curb slow play.

Here is the subhead on the Journal’s story:

“Erin Hills had spent years trying to get recreational golfers to speed up their pace of play.  The solution boiled down to a simple question:  How far can you hit a 7-iron?”

Plus, know that Erin Hills is a very reputable course because, for one reason, it hosted the LPGA Open last week.

The Journal’s writer Andrew Beaton put it this way in his story:

“As the head golf pro at Erin Hills, Jim Lombardo has spent years dreaming up new ways to speed up the pace of play at the world-class course.

“His staff even uses GPS devices to monitor the exact location of each group on the course to identify any stragglers who might slow things down.

“But lately, Lombardo and his team have discovered a new way to get a bunch of everyday hackers through 18 holes in a hurry — and it has nothing to do with a fancy piece of technology.  Instead, it boils down to one simple question.

“How far do you hit your 7-iron?” 

So, how does the “7-iron approach” work?

From the Journal:

“On the walls of the starter’s shack and inside the caddie barn there’s a chart on display that advises players which sets of tees to use based on how far they typically hit that one club.  Since Lombardo first put up the chart in 2023, Erin Hills has seen a 26 per cent uptick in people using the shorter, white tees.  And the overall speed of play has picked up.”

Slow play is a scourge of the golf game at all levels.

The PGA Tour has taken steps – some of them halting, in my judgment —  to limit the amount of time top pros spend standing over their golf balls before playing a shot.  But the problem is more acute for regular folks who carve time out of their busy schedules to sneak in a round, only to find the local course is so backed up that they’re waiting at every tee box.

The answer, at Erin Hills and elsewhere is not just to make golfers play faster.  It is to make them play shorter.

“The idea for the 7-iron solution came from a joint paper published in 2020 by the U.S. Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.  The headline item from the ‘Distance Insights Report’ was that the growing power of pro golfers was threatening to undermine the game. 

“But what caught the attention of the USGA’s director of research, was the less-publicized conclusion that recreational players take too long because they play from tees that are too far away.

Many courses, including Erin Hills, had tried to advise golfers on which tees to play from based on how far they hit their driver, but that didn’t work because many people embellish that statistic. 

The driver is the most exaggerated club in the bag.  Players tell you how long they hit their best drives — not their average drives. 

That’s less true when it comes to a 7-iron.  

Another issue was that old advice recommended the same playing distance regardless of the golf course that was being measured.  In reality, 6,000 yard tees at one course might be nothing like the 6,000 yards somewhere else. 

More from the Journal:

“By contrast, the ‘7-ron solution’ is custom fit for each course.  It looks at every hole from every tee in order to determine the optimal distance for every player, a calculation that’s helped by a survey the USGA conducted of 65,000 golfers to better understand their games. 

“The idea isn’t to make everyone play such short distances that they feel like they’re at a pitch-and-putt.  Rather, it’s to turn a course into a fair challenge that forces players to use a diverse set of clubs without being unnecessarily difficult. 

“Once Lombardo heard about the method, Erin Hills became one of the pilot courses, and it quickly noticed a change in behavior.  In 2022, 24.2 per cent of players teed off from the whites, a shorter set of tees at Erin Hills.  Last year, that was up to 30.6 per cent.

“The upshot:  Fewer golfers had to be chased down for gumming up the course.  It whittles down the number of groups that might be a challenge for pace of play.”

So, my advice on this issue for courses like those I play:  Try the “7-iron solution.”

Or, just expect recreational golfers to follow the advice from none other than all-time great Jack Nicklaus.  “Play it forward.”

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.

Note the word I chose to include in this blog headline:  “Choose.”

Those of us who play golf choose to do so, no matter how hard the game is and how many mistakes we make along the way.  It is a choice because, just think, – at some point you’ll figure it all out and have a great round!

One of my golfing friends often puts it this way to me as he returns from the range:  “Hey, Dave, guess what?  I found it.”

Yeah, I respond.  But how long will “I found it last.”

Usually, a day or so.

With this mind, I enjoyed reading a story in the New York Times about Max Homa, a pro golfer who appears to have lost his way, though he is still persevering to find it even as he wonders why.

Here is how the Times story started:

“It’s hard,” Homa said, eyes moving, looking nowhere.  “It’s hard just to not want to do this anymore.”

Some background on Homa from the Times:

“We were standing in the breezeway beside Quail Hollow’s clubhouse, a spot Homa knows well.  Six years ago, in May 2019, he stood right here, processing equal levels of disbelief and self-actualization. Then 28, Homa won his first PGA Tour event, legitimizing what had otherwise been a middling career.

“Outside Quail’s clubhouse that day, fellow tour pros stopped one after another to congratulate him.

“A few years later, in 2022, Homa walked through here again, this time as the fist-pumping, ripping-and-tearing action star of the U.S. Presidents Cup team.  After one particularly raucous afternoon that week, he said that, at long last, he finally felt like he belonged among the game’s best.”

But, then this.

“It’s 2025.  Homa is 34.  He is a six-time winner on the PGA Tour.  He has been ranked as high as fifth in the world and played in the Ryder Cup.

“’To be completely honest — I don’t know what I’m getting out of this,’ Homa said Sunday.  ‘But it’s my job.  So, I’ll keep trying and hopefully something great happens.  But yeah, I’m not really sure what’s the point.’”

The Times story continues:

“Then Friday.  Some kind of dreamscape.  Six birdies and a tap-in eagle on the par-4 14th highlighted a 7-under 64, his best score in 70 career major championship rounds.  Homa sat for a 22-minute press conference afterward.  Three shots off the lead, fresh off the round of his life, it was tempting to think his fates might once again be aligning.  The only line missing on the résumé is major champion.  Maybe this was finally it.

“Then came the weekend.

“A round of 76 on Saturday, 12 shots worse than the day prior.  Homa not only imploded but spent the afternoon playing alongside Scottie Scheffler; the world’s best player, the eventual tournament winner, the guy who finished Saturday eagle-birdie-par-birdie-birdie.

“And Sunday.  Homa pulled into the parking lot a little before 9 a.m., nearly six hours before the leaders’ tee times.  Back to the range.  Back to the course.  A round of 77 — four pars, five birdies, seven bogeys, two double-bogeys.  Homa missed left, he missed long, he missed everywhere.

“Golf, perhaps more than any other sport, has a way of most heavily taxing those who love it.  When Homa tossed that club on Sunday, the mini fit of rage made for a kitschy little video clip of a player reaching a boiling point.  What gets left out in such moments is all that comes before it.  Homa has had a trying year.  There was an equipment change, a switch to a new swing coach and a plummet in the rankings.

Then, this conclusion, with which many of us, not pro golfers, but recreational golfers, could say:

“Perhaps more than any other sport, these are the psychosomatic cycles of golf.  Find something.  Lose it.  Search for it.  Suffer.  Find something.  Success.  Happiness.  Wait, it’s gone.  Why?  What happened?  Oh, no.  Lost again.  Another search.  Torment.  Rinse.  Repeat.”

We’ve all been there and will be there again.  Still, golf beckons.

So, I am going out in a moment to try “to find it” again.

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.

Yesterday I posted excerpts from a column in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, the writer who has connections in and around Oregon.

He wrote about ways to oppose an autocrat like Donald Trump.

Today, in part two, Kristof adds perspective about how vulnerable Trump is despite his claims always to be the smartest person in the room – or everywhere.

So, here are excerpts from Kristof’s column that appeared under this headline:  Trump Is Immensely Vulnerable.  The column started this way:

“How can Americans best defend their democracy from their president?

“In my last column, I recounted three lessons from other countries where popular movements have made headway challenging authoritarian rulers.  Critics of Trump have frankly been fairly ineffective — witness his election and the way his approval ratings have risen in some polls lately — but Trump does give us a great deal to work with.

“He is immensely vulnerable.

“Drawing upon these lessons from my last column, here are what I see as the most promising lines of attack for his critics:

• Trump is deeply corrupt.  All presidents are accused of shady practices, but Trump is a felon who is using his office to enrich himself as no president has in history.

“The Times reported that more than $2 billion has flowed to Trump companies in just a month, and some of his ventures look alarmingly like opportunities for influence-peddling.  How else do we explain his announcement that the biggest investors in his new cryptocurrency memecoin, $TRUMP, would get dinner with him? “

• Trump is hurting you in the pocketbook.  One reason Trump won the presidency was voter resentment at inflation and economic weakness under Joe Biden.  Now it’s Trump who is badly damaging the economy and hitting voters in the wallet.

“Trump’s tariffs amount to the largest tax increase for Americans since 1993, with one study suggesting that a typical household may pay an extra $1,400 per year.  Trump may already have sent the economy spinning into a recession and plans for huge increases in American debt are pushing interest rates upward — which for many Americans means putting off any hope of buying a home.”

• Trump looks down on you and thinks he can manipulate you.

“Several studies have found that warning teenagers that smoking may kill them is often not effective.  What does work is showing them how tobacco companies are trying to deceive and manipulate them.  That outrages them — and in the same way, MAGA voters may shrug at Trump’s defiance of the courts but be offended by evidence that he thinks they are dummies.”

Moving beyond specifics, Kristof adds that one lesson from other countries is the importance of finding a compelling individual story to make a point.  Democrats too often cite large numbers — the 70 million Americans depend on Medicaid — rather than leaning on storytelling about individual tragedies.

And, in conclusion, he adds:  “However appalling Trump’s own behavior may be, his critics have to show that they can not only mock him — but can also govern.  If we are to hold Trump accountable, we must also hold ourselves accountable.”

Kristof’s points make sense to me, especially the one about storytelling. 

Back when I lobbied in Oregon for more money for Medicaid, which serves the health care needs pof the low-income population, we used stories featuring doctors, nurses, and patients to deliver advocacy.

The point wasn’t big numbers.  It was real stories that could strike a chord with legislators at the Capitol in Oregon.

It worked here back in the day and it a good lesson – inspired by Kristof’s writing – to learn again against Trump.

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 decided to devote my next two blogs to posting excerpts from excellent columns written by Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times.

Remember him?  With Oregon connections, including owning property in Yamhill County, Kristof filed to run for governor on the Democrat side here the last time around.  However, courts ruled that he could not do so because he had not established “residency.”

I wish he would have been allowed to run, given his experience and perspective.

But, Kristof went back to doing what he did so well before and now does again, which is to write columns for the Times.

This time, one of his columns provided insights in how it is possible to oppose an autocrat like Donald Trump.  Excerpts appear below.

In a second column, Kristof wrote about a fact he contends exists – Trump is so corrupt that he is vulnerable.  That will be part two for me.

So, here’s part one, which appeared under this headline:  Three Well-Tested Ways to Undermine an Autocrat. Kristof started his column this way:

“The question I get most often is:  What can we do to take our country back?

“So let me try to answer, drawing on lessons from other countries that have faced authoritarian challenges.

“The funny thing is that there’s a playbook for overturning autocrats.  It was written here in America, by a rumpled political scientist I knew named Gene Sharp.  While little known in the United States before his death in 2018, he was celebrated abroad, and his tool kit was used by activists in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East, and across Asia.

“His books, emphasizing non-violent protests that become contagious, have been translated into at least 34 languages.

“’Dictators are never as strong as they tell you they are,’ Sharp once said, ‘and people are never as weak as they think they are.’”

Kristof reports three examples of ways to oppose autocracy.

1. The first is mockery and humor — preferably salacious.

Humor, Kristof writes, puts autocrats in a difficult position.  They look ridiculous if they crack down on jokes but look weak if they ignore them.

• A second approach that has often succeeded is emphasizing not democracy as such but rather highlighting the leaders’ corruption, hypocrisy, and economic mismanagement.

Kristof writes:  “Critics usually have plenty of ammunition when pointing to hypocrisy, for authoritarians tend to preen as moral guardians while the lack of accountability often leads to lapses.  One example:  The police chief in Tehran, who was in charge of enforcing the Islamic dress code for women, was reportedly found naked in a brothel with six equally naked prostitutes.

“Corruption is also usually an easy target, because as autocrats become increasingly powerful, they and their family members often decide to enrich themselves:  Wherever there is authoritarianism, there is corruption.”

Think Trump because one of his main goals is to accumulate personal wealth at the expense of Americans and America.

• The third approach that has often succeeded is focusing on the power of one — an individual tragedy rather than a sea of oppression.  Protesters against apartheid used to employ the slogan, “Free South African political prisoners,” but that never got much traction.  Then they switched to “Free Nelson Mandela,” and we know the rest.

Kristof’s conclusion:  “There’s no simple formula for challenging authoritarianism.  But these approaches have enjoyed a measure of success abroad and may be ones we Americans could learn from.”

So, good words.  And, tomorrow, I’ll post Kristof’s thoughts on Trump’s vulnerability.

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

The Free Clinic in Salem, Oregon, now about 20 years old, is one of the places these days where my wife and I have decided to devote our charity dollars.

Why?

Well, two reasons.

• First, we are trying to focus on the good work of the Free Clinic and others because that’s better than focusing on the damage Donald Trump and his minions are doing to the country’s safety net.

• Second, the Free Clinic does great work with low-income citizens in our area who, otherwise, may not have access to any health care services.

Consider these statistics from 2024:

• The Clinic hosted 6,559 patients for medical visits, with no obligation to pay anything.

• The Clinic provided 2,310 hours of free counseling services.

• The Clinic provided 588 free dental appointments.

• The Clinic found a way to receive free medications and dispense them to patients.

How did all this occur?

Well, the Clinic has more than 200 volunteers – doctors, nurses, dentists, counselors – to provide these free services.  And many of them know how to access such resources as medications.

This is a piece of good news in Salem, Oregon.  The idea for the Free Clinic started at the church my wife and I have attended for more than 30 years.  But, beyond our church, volunteers now come from many other Salem churches, indicating that churches can put “hands and feet to the Gospel” if they work together.

The issue is not about getting credit.  The issue is doing “good work.”

At a time when charity dollars are trying up from the federal government, organizations like the Free Clinic are even more important.

So, we will continue supporting it as, if nothing else, a worthy endeavor.  But beyond worthiness, the Clinic allows those of who support it to express God’s love for all people – ALL people.

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.

Donald Trump used to say that he could fix anything.

• He could end the war between the Ukraine and Russia.

According to the Washington Post Fact Checker column:  “Over and over during the presidential campaign, Trump pledged to end the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine — which began when Russia invaded its neighbor. He made it seem easy — ‘within 24 hours’ — and repeated that claim in many campaign rallies.”

The fact:  The war is still going on and Trump has never admitted that he has failed to fulfill his promise to end it.

• He could hold down prices in the United States.

Trump’s pet program – impose tariffs all over the place – only means that prices will rise across-the board. 

The fact:  Of course, he’ll never admit the effect of “his” tariffs.

• He could…well, you get the picture.

As reported by Atlantic Magazine, something has changed in the way Trump and his minions are now justifying their actions.  It boils down to this pat phrase:  “I don’t know.”

Which is a travesty because they should know.

Examples from national media:

• On Capitol Hill, Senator Dick Durbin quizzed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on cuts to research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, reading off a list of terminated employees and grants.  “I do not know about any cuts to ALS research, and I’m happy to —” Kennedy started, though Durbin stopped him and said he ought to know.
• In a Senate hearing on confirmation of former Representative Billy Long to lead the IRS, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked the nominee whether it’s legal for the president to direct the IRS to revoke an organization’s non-profit status.  Yet, even with time to check the statute’s language in front of him, Long deflected:  “I’m not able to answer the question.”
• In Boston, Justice Department lawyers were struggling to answer questions from Federal Judge Brian E. Murphy, who hurriedly convened a hearing after claims by lawyers that the administration put several people, including a Vietnamese man, aboard a plane for deportation to war-ravaged South Sudan, in possible defiance of a judicial order.  “Where is the plane?” Murphy asked, according to The New York Times. 

“I’m told that information is classified, and I am told that the final destination is also classified,” a DOJ lawyer said.  Murphy wanted to know under what authority the government was classifying the flight’s location.  The attorney replied — you guessed it — “I don’t have the answer to that.”

• Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem might have been better off pleading ignorance.  Instead, she confidently and incorrectly told Senator Maggie Hassan that “habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”  Though she thought she knew, she didn’t know anything.

From the New York Times:  “In their unawareness, these officials are taking their lead from the president. Trump once promised, “I alone can fix it,” but now he has a different message:  I have no idea, as illustrated by:

• Is his administration deporting people to Libya?  Trump answers:  “I don’t know.  You’ll have to ask Homeland Security.”
• Why did Trump choose Casey Means to be surgeon general, even though she didn’t finish her medical residency?   Trump said:  “Bobby Kennedy really thought she was great.  I don’t know her.”
• Why did Trump’s Truth Social account post an image of him dressed as the Pope, ahead of the conclave?  “That’s not me that did it.  I have no idea where it came from — maybe it was AI.  But I know nothing about it.”
• Had Trump been briefed on U.S. soldiers missing during an exercise in Lithuania?  He said, “No, I haven’t.”
• Would Trump direct his administration to provide any evidence that the graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was snatched off the street by plainclothes ICE officers, was connected to Hamas?  He said, “I’ll look into it, but I’m not aware of the particular event.”
• Why did Trump sign a proclamation authorizing his administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants?  He said, “I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it.  Other people handled it.” (Trump did, in fact, sign it.)
• Given this pattern, it’s little surprise that when NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” he had a less-than-reassuring answer:  “I don’t know.”

So, I guess the point is that Trump is watching from the sidelines and not doing anything.  Or, at least, he doesn’t know what he and his minions are doing.

If they have just a moment, I’ll tell them.

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.

PEW Research asked the question that I used for this blog headline.  And it raised a long-ago memory for me.

What is news?

There is no pat or magic answer.

When I lived in Washington, D.C. to work for an Oregon congressman, I returned home on a weekend for a job interview at the Oregon Department of Human Resources in Salem, Oregon, which, at that time, included the Division of Corrections.  That title meant the state’s prison and parole system.

The director of that Division, Bob Watson, was part of the interview process and asked me a good question – “what is news.”

For me, it was a reminder back even farther when I worked as a reporter for the Daily Astorian newspaper in Astoria, Oregon.  There, I covered “news.”

When Bob asked me the question, I cannot remember how I answered.

But, today, what I would say is this:  News is what reporters and editors think it is.  Nothing more.

If a news editor for a newspaper or television station thinks something is news, they’ll cover it.  If they don’t, they won’t.

In the New York Times, several reporters told the PEW Research story, which started this way:

“Measuring people’s news habits and attitudes has long been a key part of Pew Research Center’s efforts to understand American society.  Surveys regularly ask Americans how closely they are following the news, where they get their news, and how much they trust the news they see.

“But as people are exposed to more information from more sources than ever before and lines blur between entertainment, commentary, and other types of content, these questions are not as straightforward as they once were.”

The Times story continues:

“Before the rise of digital and social media, researchers had long approached the question of what news is from the journalist perspective.  Ideas of news were often tied to the institution of journalism, and journalists defined news and determined what was newsworthy.

“News considered information produced and packaged within news organizations for a passive audience, with emphasis (particularly in the United States) placed on a particular tone, a set of values, and the idea of journalism playing a civic role in promoting an informed public.”

Now, according to the Times, the PEW analysis focuses on the basis of what an audience sees. Thus, the concept of news is not necessarily tied to professional journalism.  Audiences, rather than journalists, determine what is news.

PEW puts it this way:

“…the power to define news has largely shifted from media gatekeepers to the general public.  And discussions with everyday Americans confirm the idea that its definition varies greatly from person to person, with each bringing their own mindset and approach to navigating a dizzying information environment.

“These perceptions are consequential because news – regardless of what people consider it to be – remains a consistent part of most Americans’ lives today.  About three-quarters of U.S. adults say they follow the news at least some of the time, and 44 per cent say they intentionally seek out news extremely often or often.”

Here is a summary of key findings from PEW

• Defining news has become a personal, and personalized, experience.
• Most people agree that information must be factual, up to date and important to society to be considered news.
• “Hard news” stories about politics and war continue to be what people most clearly think of as news.
• There are also consistent views on what news is not.  (People make clear distinctions between news versus entertainment and news versus opinion.)
• At the same time, views of news as not being “biased” or “opinionated” can conflict with people’s actual behaviors and preferences.
• People don’t always like news, but they say they need it. 
• People’s emotions about news are at times tied to broader feelings of media distrust, or specific events going on at that time – perhaps in combination with individuals’ political identities.

So, for me, the definition of “news” remains a simple one.  It is what reporters and editors – as well as those who write for social media outlets, even ones they create — believe it is. 

And the result is that, unless we happen to have the skill or time to research issues ourselves, the news – call it information – we consume, affects how we look at society, including government.

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 is one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.  Because, you see, I report to myself and to no one else.

Which means I’m like Donald Trump.  I only have to answer to myself, no one else.

So, hereby, I open the Department of Bits and Pieces.

VICE PRESIDENT VANCE AND THE NEW POPE:  News broke this week that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance was setting out to establish a relationship with the new Pope, Pope Leo.

If I was the new Pope, I would not schedule Vance for a meeting.  Remember, the last time Vance with a Pope — Pope Francis — the Pope died!

So, I say to Pope Leo, move on with your priority to emphasize the importance of pastoral care, even though Vance would not know the meaning of that term.

CABINET SECRETARY BOTCHES THE DEFINTION OF HABEAS CORPUS:  As reported by national publications Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem mangled a response to a question about habeas corpus at a Senate hearing Tuesday, referring to the constitutional right of due process as a “right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”

New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan asked Noem about the constitutional protection after noting that White House adviser Stephen Miller told reporters earlier this month that the administration was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the right to challenge an arrest or imprisonment.

“I want to clarify your position,” Hassan asked. “What is habeas corpus?”

“Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to … ,” Noem responded before she was cut off by Hassan.

“That’s incorrect,” the senator said.

“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason,” Hassan said, calling it a “foundational right.”

Well, no surprise here.  On this and most other issues, Noem is like most other appointments by Donald Trump.  She has no idea what she is doing or saying, unless its obedience to Trump – and unless she wants to shoot her dog again as she vowed she could do a few months ago.

A MILITARY PARADE FOR GUESS WHO – TRUMP!  No surprise here – he wants a military parade for himself, which probably illustrates his “I want to be Putin” instinct.

Guess what?  The parade will cost in the range of $45 million.

There are far better uses for this federal money.

Plus, as I read Psalm 33 in the Bible this morning, I came across a verse that applies to Trump and other military-minded leaders in our world: 

“No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength.”

So, I wish Trump would read the Bible, instead of Mein Kampf.