AN UNUSUAL POST FROM ME: TWO VIEWS ON IMPEACHMENT

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

Competing propositions:

• What Trump did violated presidential norms and should result in his removal from office.
• What Trump did doesn’t matter because he won in 2016, has blanket immunity as president and should remain in office unless he gets beat in 2020.

Those, essentially, are two views of the Trump impeachment process making the rounds in Washington, D.C.

So, I was struck this week when I read commentaries – one in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and a second in the Washington Post – that came to opposite conclusions on the impeachment process.

The differences suggested to me that the only way to go would be to post these commentaries to illustrate the two views, which are, in many ways, representative of what is going on in America as Trump faces a real threat to his office. The post, therefore, is long, but, to me at least, worth reading.

Paul Waldman from the Washington Post and Dan Henninger from the WSJ are both very capable journalists. Waldman says the Democrats are proceeding effectively to build a case against Trump. Henninger contends the Ds have moved far too quickly and should have waited to oust Trump through the 2020 election.

Whom do you believe? I favor Waldman, given the height, depth and breadth of Trump’s misdeeds. But Henninger’s points also are worth considering.

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Surprise: Democrats are actually mounting an effective impeachment inquiry

By Paul Waldman, Washington Post columnist

If there’s one thing everyone in the political world agrees on, it’s that Democrats are a bunch of screw-ups who can’t get anything right. The impeachment process was supposed to be just one more example: They were fools for not starting it sooner, then they were dumb for starting it at all, then everything about it was supposed to be disastrous.

But now? From both a substantive and political perspective, the impeachment inquiry is going about as well as you could hope. Democrats are, in fact, getting this right.

That’s not to say everything’s been perfect. For instance, the leadership chose to focus on the Ukraine scandal and not include the many other impeachable acts Trump has committed as part of the inquiry. There’s a reasonable case you could make for either approach, but there are certainly plenty of high crimes and misdemeanors just around Ukraine.

So let’s look at where we are now. Keep in mind that we’re in only the first phase of the inquiry, in which depositions are being taken privately from key officials. What have we learned?

Despite the White House’s attempts to obstruct the investigation, several officials have testified, and their accounts of events are beginning to fill in a shocking picture of presidential misdeeds. At this point, it’s undisputed that Trump ordered his “lawyer” Rudolph W. Giuliani to set up a separate, quasi-official Ukraine policy, which Rudy did with his (allegedly criminal) friends, to coerce Ukraine into helping Trump’s reelection. Along the way, Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine, attempting to get the country to mount a probe of Biden that would produce something damaging — or at least provide a justification for Trump to publicly proclaim that Biden was corrupt.

Giuliani’s parallel foreign policy initiative sucked in a range of officials, nearly all of whom understood how inappropriate it was, and many of whom are sharing what they know with Congress.

Every time another one of them testifies, we get alarming new revelations of how unusual, improper and incompetent the whole thing was. Critically, those testifying are not partisan opponents of the president but respected career civil servants who have worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Their testimony has been devastating to Trump — and there’s more to come.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are left resorting to buffoonish stunts such as the one they pulled Wednesday, storming a secure room to protest the fact that they were being kept out of a deposition of a Pentagon official — except they weren’t being kept out, because Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee were in the room ready to question the witness, and members of the other two committees participating in the impeachment inquiry were welcome to attend as well.

Their strategy, if you can call it that, is being shaped by the president himself, who cares only about whether Republicans are angrily shouting at a sufficient volume on his behalf. If he turns on Fox News and sees them snarling and red-faced, he thinks he’s winning. Meanwhile, “Republicans have increasingly complained that defending Trump against those accusations is a herculean task made more difficult by the president’s impromptu tweets and the lack of coordinated messaging at the White House.”

The biggest problem Republicans have, however, is the facts. It’s indicative of how brutal this process has been for the administration that the president and his advocates can’t seem to decide on what the defense of him is supposed to be. Are the allegations all fabricated? Did Trump not pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden to help his reelection campaign, or was it completely fine that he did so? Was there no quid pro quo, or are quid pro quos good? Whatever they’re saying today, they’ll probably be saying something different tomorrow. They can’t decide because there is so little ambiguity around what Trump did, and no good way to justify it.

Which is why the methodical approach the Democrats are taking is working well. In the current phase, they’re gathering testimony from officials, which is adding up to a damning indictment of the president. Then next month, they’ll move to public hearings, which will provide dramatic, made-for-TV moments in which Trump’s abuse of power will be laid bare.

This will then lead almost inevitably to a vote on impeach. The president is unlikely to be convicted in the Senate, which would require 20 Republican senators voting to remove him, but by then Democrats will have done all they could to gather information, display his wrongdoing for the public to see and understand, and impose what accountability they can.

And according to polls, it’s already working. Up until a few weeks ago, a majority of Americans opposed impeachment, but that has flipped. Now the polls show a plurality, or in some cases a majority, saying Trump should be impeached.

I suppose it’s theoretically possible that next month’s public hearings will finally show that the whole thing is a witch hunt, that Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) suddenly display competence and dismantle witnesses so skillfully that the entire American people realize how innocent Trump is. It’s also possible that by next month I’ll be the starting point guard for the Golden State Warriors.

More likely, the process from this point forward will make Trump’s malfeasance even more clear and widely understood. Republicans will continue to flail as they try desperately to find a defense of Trump that doesn’t sound ludicrous. The president himself will grow more unhinged, rage-tweeting day after day in order to keep his base from abandoning him. And all of it will play out against the backdrop of the 2020 election, when the voters get to decide if they want four more years of this.

It’s almost as if the Democrats know what they’re doing.

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Pelosi’s Impeachment Blunder

By Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page editor, WSJ

Nancy Pelosi had the Democrats’ impeachment strategy right the first time: Don’t do it. But apparently even a lifetime in the mud-filled trenches of politics wasn’t enough to toughen the House speaker against the Democratic left’s compulsion to impeach Donald Trump.

Anyone of any political stripe knows that the most psychologically distressed Democrats have wanted to impeach this guy, somehow just get rid of him, from day one.

Before Democrats regained control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections, the Trump takedown was supposed to result from the Russian-collusion narrative, which got up to speed in January 2017 and then steamrolled across the country for two years of media leaks and the Mueller investigation, ultimately and fantastically going nowhere.

Within a day of the Mueller report’s release, dismissing the Russian-collusion story lines, the opposition pivoted to the obstruction-of-justice narrative. Somehow, the pivoters must have assumed that the American people, after enduring the Mueller odyssey, would not notice that this extraordinarily disruptive investigation had come to nothing. And that people would saddle up to join the next get-Trump posse. That didn’t work.

We’ll pause in our own narrative to posit a de minimis level of legitimacy to what they’ve done. If the opposition party and, in our unique times, the opposition press want to spend what capital and credibility they have in a round-the-clock effort to take down a sitting president, that’s their prerogative. Nothing in the Constitution says elected officials are obliged to do anything productive.

But translating the public’s votes into a permanent presidential takedown had better work, because if they don’t pull off impeachment and drive Donald Trump out of public life next year, the losses for the Democrats and the media will be devastating. It’s the familiar do-or-die stakes of trying to take out the king.

Because Donald Trump loves living dangerously, he and the increasingly mysterious Rudy Giuliani handed his opponents the unexpected excitement of the Ukraine-Biden narrative—and at last an opening for impeachment. The New York Times, delirious at the prospect, has even created an ominous little logo for its coverage, typically several pages a day—“The 45th President: Impeachment.”

Maybe it really will be the third time’s the charm for the Trump-elimination forces, but the impeachment project looks like it’s starting to go wobbly.

For starters, it’s still just sort-of an impeachment. There’s been no vote in the House and no sign the Judiciary Committee is drawing up articles of impeachment, as in the past. Instead, Adam Schiff’s intelligence committee is interviewing Ukraine-related State Department officials—in secret hearings. It resembles a show trial, with the “public” parts emerging as selective leaks to the impeachment press.

But the most telling impeachment development this week wasn’t any paraphrased testimony from Mr. Schiff’s private hearings. It was the news that Speaker Pelosi’s impeachment timetable has been delayed “to sharpen their case” for doing it.

It is now evident that a vote to impeach President Trump isn’t likely to occur before Thanksgiving, as many assumed, but will slip to December. Then, of course, the trial phase will pass to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Mr. McConnell reportedly wanted it all over by the end of the year, but what’s the rush? The Trump trial could run through January—31 priceless campaign days before the Democratic Party’s intensely competitive primaries. The Iowa caucus vote is Feb. 3, then comes New Hampshire’s primary on Feb. 11; Nevada’s caucuses are Feb. 22; and the crucially important South Carolina primary arrives Feb. 29.

Instead of competing for their party’s nomination, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Michael Bennet will spend invaluable campaign time planted on Capitol Hill during the days that the Pelosi-Schiff Trump trial drones on. Sens. Sanders and Harris can’t call Mr. Trump the “most corrupt president” in the history of the country and then skip out on the trial of public enemy No. 1 to campaign in a downstate Iowa diner.

Joe Biden, Mayor Pete, and Hillary’s new friend Rep. Tulsi Gabbard get to romp daily through the primary states, but who’s going to notice with the Trump impeachment trial siphoning away the nation’s media’s attention?

Surely Nancy Pelosi knew when she stood firm against opening the impeachment dam that the interests of her party’s anti-Trump compulsives—nearly all from safe seats—and her party’s broader election interests were not aligned.

The left has always believed that some deus ex machina, such as Robert Mueller or a nonstop storm of negative press stories, would magically make the Trump presidency just go away—rather than the more plausible likelihood that the relentlessly combustible Mr. Trump would eventually discredit himself in the eyes of most voters.

The American left throughout its existence has had a deep mistrust of the U.S. system, so rather than wait until November 2020 for voters to sort all this out, we get this crypto-impeachment. Like the sure-thing election of 2016, it too could backfire.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

Yes, this is a blog about golf, one of my favorite subjects.

A major change is coming at the first of the year, January 1, 2020. It is the date of implementation of a new World Handicapping System.

No longer will there be six separate systems around the world. There will be one system.

If you don’t know what handicapping is in golf, here is a quick definition as provided by the United States Golf Association (USGA):

“The USGA defines handicap as a measure of his current ability over an entire round of golf, signified by a number. The lower the number, the better the golfer is.” A handicap essentially signifies how many strokes above or below par a golfer should be able to play.”

And, whatever else is true, the handicap system allows golfers of any ability to play straight-up against any other golfer.

To prepare for the new one world system, Oregon Golf Association (OGA) handicap director Kelly Neely has provided a summary for golfers in Oregon. And, without apology, given Neely’s credentials, I repeat here what she wrote. [By credentials, I mean that Neely just completed 25 years as the OGA handicap manager and all of us in Oregon are lucky to have had her involved on our behalf.]

Here, then, is what she wrote.

There are several items to keep in mind as we prepare for the new World Handicap System set to debut in 2020. Below is a sneak peak at what’s to come.

1) The minimum number of scores to establish a Handicap Index will be three 18-hole rounds made up of any combination of 9 or 18-hole scores. A new player establishing a Handicap Index will use PAR + 5 as their maximum score per hole.

• Current system requires five 18-hole rounds (or 10 nine-hole scores combined)

2) For a full scoring record of 20 scores, the system will take the 8 lowest score differentials to calculate the Handicap Index.

• Current system takes 10 lowest score differentials

3) When abnormal playing conditions cause scores to be unusually high or low on a given day, a Playing Conditions Calculation, or PCC, will adjust score differentials to better reflect the player’s actual performance.

• Current system has no comparable adjustment

4) Net Double Bogey (or Double Bogey Plus) will be used when a player’s actual score or most likely score exceeds a maximum number derived using the following formula. All players, no matter their Course Handicap, will use Net Double Bogey:   Net Double Bogey = Par + 2 +/- Handicap strokes received or given on a hole

• Current system uses Equitable Stroke Control and can change according to the Course Handicap range in which the player falls

5) The Maximum Handicap Index for men and women will be 54.0. This will encourage more novice golfers to get a Handicap Index.

• Current system has a max of 36.4 for men and 40.4 for women

6) Under the World Handicap System, a Handicap Index will update daily. This feature ids designed to encourage golfers to post their scores immediately following their round.

• Current system updates Indexes on the 1st and 15th of each month

There. Now you know about the new system. It will be good for golf.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

It is possible that the Trump presidency hangs on three Latin words – quid pro quo.

Democrats in the U.S. House are gathering evidence to show that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo, which means getting “this for that” and that he did so to gain an advantage over a political opponent in the coming U.S. presidential election.

Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, provided more evidence by using a recent press conference to say, yes, his boss did condition aid on Ukraine actions to prompting an investigation of the Bidens.

Mulvaney tried “to walk back” his comments, but that attempt only served to underscore what he said initially.

Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen shows up this week with an interesting column on the “quid pro quo” phrase. He says there is nothing wrong with quid pro quos in general – “it just depends on what the quo is.”

Here are excerpts from what Thiessen wrote:

“…The United States engages in quid pro quos all the time when it comes to foreign assistance. Our aid is not charity; Americans expect to get something in return for it. We have leveraged U.S. assistance in exchange for a host of objectives: Economic reform, democratic reform, better pursuit of corruption, access to strategically important areas and so on.”

In 1978, Thiessen says Jimmy Carter agreed to provide Egypt with billions of dollars in foreign aid in exchange for making peace with Israel, as part of the Camp David Accords. In 2004, George W. Bush created the Millenium Challenge Account, which required countries to meet a host of eligibility requirements — free speech, free assembly, rule of law, property rights, transparency — before they could receive a grant of aid.

Thiessen reports that Congress also imposes quid pro quos on U.S. foreign aid all the time.

“Even former vice president Joe Biden has admitted to a quid pro quo with Ukraine. He held up $1 billion in loan guarantees (a quid) to get them to fire a prosecutor who was not investigating corruption (a quo). This was perfectly legitimate, he says, and he may well be right.”

In the current case, the problem is there is substantial evidence that the quo for Trump was a foreign investigation of Biden, one of his potential opponents in the 2020 presidential race. So, to build off Thiessen’s column, the quo matters.

As more evidence emerges to confirm that quo, it could doom the Trump presidency, though, of course, it is still possible that Republicans in the Senate won’t vote to convict and Trump will continue to get away with serious misdeeds that compromise the presidency, if not the country.

Here’s one person hoping the “Trump quo,” as I now will be calling it, will bring down this president.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

Pick your image.

Each one in the headline could portend problems for Donald Trump.

As we learn more about his misdeeds each day, a vote on impeachment articles by the U.S. House looks more and more likely, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says it will be delayed and won’t occur for several weeks instead of at Thanksgiving.

The U.S. Senate, of course, is a different story; conviction may still be a stretch, no matter when articles come over from the House.

But, I hearken back to the impeachment processes involving Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – yes, I lived through those – my sense is that, the farther we go through the process, the more the weight of evidence falls negatively on Trump.

In Nixon’s case, he was not convicted, but resigned from office because he would have been convicted based on the results of his work in an alleged criminal enterprise, plus the cover-up. Clinton wasn’t convicted, but his presidency was tainted until its end.

Of course, if Trump has a strategy here – he rarely has a strategy for anything – his approach may be to portray himself as a victim so that status inflames his base. Even his use of the word “lynching” this week sparked some support from his supporters who believed the over-the-top word was accurate, even if it implied a linkage to incredible crimes against black persons in our past.

But back to images. As we learn more information:

• It appears that a tsunami is building and, soon, could crash over Trump.
• It appears that a series of small shocks could result in “the big one” – a major earthquake that topples Trump.
• It appears that a snowball is rolling down, gathering more weight and speed as it makes the traverse to engulf Trump.

Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle made a similar point this week.

“At this point, it’s clear Trump is going to be impeached. What’s open to question is whether the Senate will remove him. For a long time, that answer had seemed equally obvious: Of course it wouldn’t. There would be a quick trial amid complaints about ‘lynching’ and similar rhetoric, and Trump would stay in office. That’s still the conventional wisdom — but allow me to outline why I think it might be wrong.

“Start with the fact that congressional Republicans don’t much like him. They defend him mostly because they are afraid of his loyalists. It’s hard to know how numerous those voters are, but here’s one reasonable proxy: On Super Tuesday, 2016, when the Republican primary race was still hotly contested, Trump failed to garner 50 per cent of Republican primary voters in any of the 11 states.

“While most GOP would like to get rid of Trump, any individual who stands up to him faces a backlash from the Trump loyalists — and while they could probably prevail if they all shifted at once, so far, they haven’t been able to coordinate a collective action.”

McArdle suggests that impeachment hearings on Trump “might expose the public to his administration’s internal decision-making processes, at length, and not filtered through anonymous sources and a left-leaning mainstream media.”

She also avers that “Trump’s ill-conceived outbursts could start generating undeniable real-world consequences rather than eliciting fuzzy complaints about his lack of ‘civility’ and ‘norms.’ Outbursts could cost him his more weakly attached voters. More and more Republicans hear from previously Trump-loyal friends that that’s it, they’re through. That opens up emotional space for them to consider rejecting him, too.

“With Trump’s numbers worsening, it will then become harder to maintain the illusion that Trump is somehow immune to normal political rules. By the time the poll numbers for removal inch up to somewhere in the range of 55 to 58 per cent, it becomes clear Trump will almost certainly lose in 2020 — and worse, take the Senate down with him.

“Now his support really begins to collapse, particularly among evangelicals.”

Yet, this morning, one of my favorite columnists, Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, disagrees. He contends that Pelosi has gone too far by starting the impeachment process as a sop to the left, especially the far left, which still cannot believe that Trump won in 2016.

The left, Henninger writes, wants more government and cannot get the result with Trump, so wants to force him out office before 2020.

Well, with all due respect to Henninger who is closer to the process than I am, I believe a reckoning is coming for Trump.

To go back to the images, I believe a tsunami, an earthquake or a snowball downhill are building and could spell the end of Trump. Good.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

Sometimes I feel a little like Dana Milbank, the columnist for the Washington Post, who has made a living over the last three years lodging huge criticisms of Donald Trump.

I, too, find it within reason to rail against the excesses of Trump, perhaps even, as Milbank does, on a daily.

You know the guy, Trump. Incredibly, he occupies the Oval Office in the White House. Though who knows if he spends much time there, preferring to be out on the campaign trail inflaming his political base.

Patterning myself after Milbank, I include in this blog several quotes about Trump and, goodness knows, there are many options for inclusion.

All of this goes into one of three departments I run, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering. Along with the other departments – the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of Bits and Pieces – I have a free hand to run the operations as I see fit.

Now, about Trump.

APPROPRIATELY, THIS FIRST ITEM FROM MILBANK:  “He was straight out of Foggy Bottom central casting.

“Lean and bespectacled, with neatly combed gray hair and a pressed charcoal suit, William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, gave not so much as a glance toward the massed cameras as he arrived Tuesday (to provide a deposition to the U.S. House).

“But once inside, he delivered words that could end a presidency.

“In August and September of this year, I became increasingly concerned that our relationship with Ukraine was being fundamentally undermined by an irregular informal channel of U.S. policy-making and by the withholding of vital security assistance for domestic political reasons,” Taylor testified. Taylor said President Trump himself made the release of military aid to Ukraine contingent on a public declaration by Ukraine’s president that the country would investigate Joe and Hunter Biden and the 2016 election.

“In an instant, the impeachment inquiry no longer rested on the credibility or motives of a whistleblower, nor arguments about the meaning of quid pro quo. Taylor, an Army veteran and a respected diplomat who obviously kept detailed notes, will not be easy to discredit.”

Comment: Milbank is right. The case against Trump is getting stronger every day.

FROM COLUMNIST ROBERT SAMUELSON IN THE WASHINGTON POST:  “No one has worked more aggressively to trigger impeachment than the president. You may remember that, during the campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump suggested that, should he win, he might become one of the most “boring” presidents in history. There was in this curious pledge — which, as we now know, has been broken along with many other campaign promises — at least the slim possibility that Trump would recognize the crucial difference between running for office and running the country.

Imagine, if you will, the consequences if Trump had embraced this pivotal distinction…What mattered was tone — the ability to debate issues without impugning the character of his opponents. To be sure, partisan debate is full of exaggerations and simplicities. Still, it usually respects some bounds of truth and civility. Following this traditional path, Trump might have boosted his popularity, especially given the strong economy inherited from President Barack Obama. Even fierce critics might have conceded that, in practice, the “boring” Trump wasn’t so bad.

“Trump appeals to his supporters’ basest human instincts. He regularly uses immigration to stir racial and ethnic tensions.”

Comment: Yes. Trump appeals to base instincts because, in fact, that’s all he has himself.

FROM KIMBERLEY STRASSEL IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “The nation has struggled to categorize the Democratic presidential candidates. Senator Elizabeth Warren is some days a “populist,” others a “liberal.” Senator Bernie Sanders is at pains to define “democratic socialism” as apart from plain, old “socialism.” The media describes Senator Amy Klobuchar as a “centrist” or “moderate,” even as she insists on “proven progressive.”

“There’s an easier taxonomy: Lefties vs. Crazy Lefties. That’s the choice Democrats have in the primaries, and the two pools from which Donald Trump’s opponent will come.”

Comment: I am not sure where Trump fits on any political spectrum, but almost all of those still running as Democrats hew so far to the left it is also hard to find them.

I am waiting for someone to emerge from the center. May be a long wait.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

One of my favorite quotes was uttered by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

She said: ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

She’s right.

And many of those competing for the Democrat nomination for president express that aspiration exactly.

One is Bernie Sanders who expresses no hesitancy to spend other people’s money. But the leader could well be Elizabeth Warren.

Here is the way Wall Street Journal editorial writers put it this morning:

“If it’s Monday, it must be another giant spending proposal from one of the Democrat presidential candidates. This week, like most weeks, the winner is front-runner Elizabeth Warren, who called in a post for another $800 billion in federal spending on K-12 education.

“Her ‘plan’ — she loves that word — would quadruple current spending on Title I funds for schools with low-income students to $450 billion over 10 years. She also wants $200 billion more for students with disabilities, $100 billion in other grants, and $50 billion for school buildings. Remember when K-12 used to be largely a state and local responsibility? It won’t be with Ms. Warren.

“The Warren campaign said she will pay for this with her proposed wealth tax, which she claims will raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years. If you believe that, you probably don’t have a good tax lawyer or accountant. The senator nonetheless says this wealth windfall will finance her $1.07 trillion universal child-care plan, $610 billion for free college tuition, her plan to cancel $640 billion in student debt and now $800 billion for K-12 education. This will be the hardest working wealth tax in history.

“No word yet from the senator on how she will finance her Medicare for All plan, which would cost the mere pittance of $32 trillion over 10 years.”

Spending other people’s money?

Yes. That’s exactly what Warren wants to do as she appeals to voters who want more government spending and hand-outs.

Before you know it, she will run out money. Or, better put, you will run out of money to fund her grandiose government-centric schemes.

Or, the country will be bankrupt.

For me, I have had enough of Donald Trump and his violations of law, not to mention failing, in any respect, to do what is right as president as he favors his own aggrandizement over any benefit for the country.

But, the big-government schemes of Warren and others on the far left are no better.

We need a candidate from and for the center to make sure Margaret Thatcher’s quote doesn’t come true here.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

Over the last three years, I have had a quizzical reaction to issue in this blog headline as I have watched President Donald Trump careen from one issue to another without any apparent regard for the fact that he looks and acts unhinged.

I use the word “careen” intentionally because it indicates he – Trump – has no central motivating commitment other than to aggrandize himself. Himself over the country!

He is unhinged.

Tony Schwartz, the author who helped Trump write the book, The Art of Deal (which I have not read), shows up this weekend with a piece in the Washington Post that, at least for me, helps to define Trump. [Schwartz is now chief executive of the Energy Project, which exists to help organization leaders and employees pursue healthier, happier, more productive and more meaningful lives.]

In the Post, the headline and subhead for the Schwartz piece is this:

Why Trump can’t change, no matter what the consequences are

Personal growth is about seeing more. The president is too self-absorbed for that.

Based on the Schwartz piece, I propose four traits that help explain Trump’s bizarre, “I’m the most important person in the room” behavior:

1. INSTANT GRATIFICATION: His need for instant gratification prevents him from considering the longer-term consequences of his actions. Instead, he simply reacts in the moment and this helps to explain why he moves into overdrive whenever he feels attacked, including by issuing an often-enormous number of tweets that attack his detractors.
2. PARANOIA: Throughout his adult life, Trump has viewed the world as a dark, dangerous place teeming with enemies out to get him. In the face of potential impeachment, his fear has escalated exponentially. The threat he imagines is no longer just to his fragile sense of self but, realistically, to his future as president.  Any capacity Trump ever had to think clearly or calmly has evaporated. Instead, he’s devolved into anger, blame, aggression and sadistic attacks.
3. THE REALITY OF UNREALITY: The only wall Trump has built is around himself, to keep his own insecurity and vulnerability at bay.  Ironically, his defense consistently produces precisely what it’s meant to protect against. That is just what happened when the Wall Street Journal broke the story of his attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of presidential candidate Joe Biden.

And, the same thing happened when Trump suddenly decided to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, sparking opposition from many Republicans who previously had let Trump get away with murder – no exaggeration there.

4. DOUBLING DOWN: Facing threats to their businesses and uncertainty about the future, leaders sometimes double down on what’s worked best for them in the past. The problem is that any strength overused eventually becomes a liability.

Confidence turns into arrogance. Courage becomes recklessness. Certainty congeals into rigidity. Authority moves toward authoritarianism.

Consider each of those parallels and recognize that they accurately characterize Trump.

So, we have an unhinged president whose very acts aggravate the circumstances we face as a country. It’s beyond time for Congress, despite its often-seen political frailties, to rescue the country by convicting Trump in the impeachment process, thus removing him from office.

It won’t be easy, but doing the right thing never is, at least in politics.

For me, it is almost unthinkable to consider another year in office for Trump, not to mention a second term, for the worst American president in history.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

The church my wife and I have attended for more than 30 years, Salem Alliance Church emphasizes an important mission statement:

“We aspire to be a city at peace with God.”

Aspirations for being a city at peace with God could flow from a Hebrew word, shalom, which sounds a bit like Salem and means this according to the dictionary:

“Many are familiar with the Hebrew word shalom or ‘peace. ‘ The common western definition of peace is — the absence of conflict or war — but in Hebrew it means so much more. ‘Shalom’ is taken from the root word shalam, which means, ‘to be safe in mind, body, or estate.’”

The lead pastor at Salem Alliance, Steve Fowler, emphasizes the phrase, but also lives it by organizing various programs, missions and events that link the church to the city.

And remember that Salem Alliance made an intentional decision about 20 years ago, when I was chair of the Governing Board, to remain in the center of the city rather than move out to the outskirts.

Our intention, then and now, was to function as a solid neighbor in the Grant Neighborhood, including Grant School, which sits only a couple blogs east of the church.

It is noteworthy to emphasize peace in a day when peace tends to be in short supply, either in terms of wars around the world or in the “war” citizens deal with as a result of corrupt politics – Donald Trump who has demeaned the Oval Office and many Democrats who cannot find reasonable ways to oppose him.

An organization called Salem Leadership Foundation (SLF) also emphasizes peace in Salem as it has moved, successfully over the years, to bring people together, not tear them apart.

The leader of the non-profit enterprise is Sam Skillern, whom I have known and respected for years, including when I was privileged to serve on the SLF Board.

Here is the way he put his aspiration in a recent e-mail message:

“A book crossed my desk last year. It was called The Outward Mindset and points us away from being “inward” (i.e. self-centered and selfish) to a perspective that is other-oriented and collaborative.

“In the words of Jesus, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’  So instead of seeing other people as, 1) assets I exploit for my gain, 2) obstacles in my way, or 3) objects I blame for my failures, we are challenged to view others as people-of-value whom we can serve and collaborate with for rich, mutual benefit.

Skillern appreciates the commitment Mountain West Investment Corporation, which has provided the accredited staff for training and mentoring through the commitment of its leader, Larry Tokarski, whom I am privileged to call a friend.

“For years,” Skillern says, “I’ve floated the idea that virtually every ministry, non-profit, municipality, business, agency and organization in Salem-Keizer all share the same core mission:  The health and well-being of our community.

“In other words, Shalom.  With an outward mindset, we can get there together.”

Good words from Skillern and those who have helped him pass the Shalom message around Salem.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

The headline for this blog this morning captures an unfortunate, not to mention foreboding, reality in this country. It is this:

Trump wins because debates Democrats hold illustrate they cannot get their act together to propose a candidate who is not so far left as to be off the political spectrum. Given this reality, even centrist Americans could be drawn toward Trump, which could have continued with the most current date now just concluded.

In a piece this week for the Wall Street Journal, Bobby Jindal, the former governor of Louisiana, put it this way:

“Lots of voters dislike the president, but will be convinced to vote for him by seeing his opponents.”

That’s why, from my post in the cheap seats out West, I have hoped for months, if not years, that a centrist candidate would emerge who would call Americans to love their country rather than, figuratively at least, yell on every street corner about how anyone who doesn’t agree with them are nuts.

Or, as is manifestly the case with Trump, put themselves first and the country be damned.

More from Jindal: “The Republican National Committee should offer to be the official sponsor of a weekly Democrat presidential debate. There would be no better advertisement for President Trump’s re-election. Every time the Democrat presidential contenders gather together, it’s a contest between the merely delusional, the vaguely vindictive, and the patently absurd.”

There was no better example of this when D presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke recently outlined his proposal to tax religious institutions that don’t approve of same sex marriage.

O’Rourke is the one who interpreted his failed Senate campaign as a steppingstone to the presidency, including foul-mouthed language on the campaign trail – in that way, much like Trump.

“This,” according to Washington Post writer Michael Gerson, “is not the normal substance of presidential ambitions. Few young people nursing political dreams say: “When I grow up, I want to be a foul-mouthed, overreaching, anti-religious culmination of every exaggerated liberal stereotype and the embodiment of every fevered conservative nightmare.”

Some responsible Democrat, Gerson adds, needs to sit O’Rourke down and tell him it is not worth winning the Democrat nomination in ways that guarantee a re–election landslide for Trump. And that it is not worth losing the Democrat nomination in ways that badly hurt the eventual Democrat nominee.

More from Gerson: “The loyalty and enthusiasm of Trump’s base of support in the GOP — especially among white evangelicals — are ensured by apocalyptic fears. The election of a Democrat president, the story goes, would end America as we know it and usher in an era of anti-Christian persecution. By this logic, many conservative Christians view Trump as a thug who fights in their favor.”

I hope that Trump’s recent stupidity regarding Syria, leaving the Kurds to fend for themselves and freeing ISIS for more tyranny, will prompt Trumpians, finally, to reflect on their often unthinking support.

If not, it should, even as many Republicans in Congress are leaving Trump alone, if only on the Syria cave-in.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

“He was hectoring and imperious. He was domineering and defiant. And he was audacious and cavalier.

“In the nearly three weeks since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened an impeachment inquiry, President Trump has struck a posture of raw aggression. His visceral defenses of himself — at the most vulnerable point of his presidency — have shined a spotlight on Trump’s state of mind.

“Like an aging rock star, the president is now reprising many of the greatest hits from his hellion days. He has bullied and projected — at times leveling against others the very charges he faces — while simultaneously depicting himself as a victim. And he has turned to ominous depictions of America, and in moments sounded an authoritarian tone.”

That’s a good description of the person who, incredibly, occupies the Oval Office, with all the risks his conduct portends for America.

In a piece for the Washington Post, two writers – Ashley Parker and Phillip Bump – do a good job of cataloging Trump’s unhinged approach.

Trump is so unhinged that it does strikes me as plausible to say that he has a “state of mind.” Instead, he flies by the seat of his pants, uttering through tweets, whatever happens to enter his mind at any point in the process regardless of the result.

Incredibly, only five days after the impeachment inquiry began, Trump sent forth a torrent of four dozen tweets and re-tweets, making it, at the time, the third most prolific day of tweeting of his entire presidency.

Then, the next day, Trump passed that previous milestone with 59 total tweets, including 33 in just 20 minutes. All told, in the week before the launch of the inquiry, Trump averaged 18 tweets per day.

Here, then, is a summary of the Trump traits Post writers Parker and Bump describe.

Martyr

Trump strode onstage to rapturous applause at a packed arena in Minneapolis Thursday night ostensibly to campaign for re-election in 2020. But he was obsessed instead with the 2016 election, delivering a jeremiad of persecution and self-pity.

The president cast himself as the ultimate victim of harassment from congressional Democrats, the intelligence community and the media.

Victimization has long been central to Trump’s political identity, rooting him in the grievance politics of the right and inspiring in his millions of followers a duty to protect the president from any perceived threat. But Trump’s feelings of oppression and persecution have been especially pronounced during the impeachment crisis.

Heckler

It was another episode of “Chopper Talk” — Trump’s freewheeling question-and-answer sessions with reporters before he boards the Marine One helicopter — only this time the president was especially agitated. He strode back and forth and sliced the air with his hands.

As has long been his habit, Trump has applied derogatory nicknames to his impeachment antagonists. Schiff is “Shifty Schiff,” Pelosi is “Nervous Nancy” and Senator Mitt Romney, the Republican most outspoken about Trump’s conduct, is “Pompous Senator.”

Autocrat 

In Trump’s “great and unmatched wisdom,” he is a leader to be obeyed.

In fact, the president offered that self-assessment in response to criticism of his decision to remove U.S. troops from northern Syria and, in doing so, abandon a longtime critical ally.

“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!),” Trump tweeted.

But the general sentiment also reflected the often-defiant posture Trump has adopted while facing impeachment, a “Dear Leader” tone more associated with an authoritarian regime than a democracy.

Projectionist 

If the Twitterati takeaway of Trump’s news conference with Niinistö was that the president was having a #TrumpMeltdown, in Twitter parlance, Trump had a different view of the situation: It was Schiff who was imploding.

In response to a question about whether the White House would comply with House subpoenas, Trump accused Schiff of having “some kind of a mental breakdown.”

The tactic is one long-favored by Trump, in which he takes a charge or accusation leveled against him and wields it like a cudgel back on a perceived foe, even in cases where the counter-assault may seem hypocritical or preposterous.

Conspiracist 

Trump decried the impeachment effort against him as a “coup.” He accused the intelligence community whistleblower — as well as the whistleblower’s sources — of spying on him and committing “treason.” He described the impeachment process being run by Pelosi and Schiff as “a totally compromised Kangaroo court.”

To Trump, the impeachment probe is evidence of a plot to remove him from office, part of a dystopian alternate reality he is combating with ominous language and dark proclamations.

Perhaps most ominously, Trump has warned of a civil war. On September 29 — a day of extreme presidential angst as measured by his near-record output of tweets — Trump shared the warning with his 65.6 million followers.

So, for me, there is little question but that Trump is unhinged.   He cannot focus on his job given his negative mental health status. And that leaves all of us in jeopardy.