February 12, 2021 by davefiskum

CHILLING THOUGHTS ABOUT 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 (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.

It was a powerful moment in the final day of the House managers’ impeachment prosecution of former president Donald Trump.

At the Senate podium, California Representative Ted Lieu said this in response to contentions from defense lawyers that Trump would run again and win:

“I’m afraid he’s going to run again and lose. Because he would do this (inciting a riot) again.”

As I watched the impeachment process yesterday, I was left with a further chilling thought.

Violence comes naturally to Trump and his sycophants. They will continue to engage in it, matter what happens in the impeachment vote.

Videos displayed by House impeachment managers showed clearly that some citizens of this country have no problem resorting to violence, even actions which violate criminal codes.

As with Trump, their leader, violence is their way of getting their way, no matter the consequences.

Senate Republicans ought to consider this realty as, in a few days, they vote.

Still, I contend it is better to convict Trump than to let him continuing to get away with violence – again.

Washington Post opinion writer, Dana Milbank, wrote about this in a column that appeared this morning under this headline:

Opinion: If Republican senators acquit Trump, they will own the violence that follows

Here are excerpts of what he wrote:

“House impeachment managers closed their prosecution Thursday with a warning to Republican senators: If they vote to acquit former president Donald Trump, the blood will be on their hands when he unleashes political carnage again.

“’When’ is the proper word, for, given Trump’s long pattern of inciting violent threats and actions, the next brutal outburst is not a question of ‘if.’

“’If we don’t draw the line here, what’s next?’ Representative Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, asked the senators. ‘Is there any political leader in this room who believes that, if he is ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office, Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way? If he gets back into office and it happens again, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.”

Milbank wrote that it has been five years since Trump marveled at his own ability to incite. “I bring rage out,” he told The Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. “I always have.”

IMPEACHMENT MOVES FORWARD TO AN UNCERTAIN END

Revulsion

Definition: a strong feeling of repugnance, distaste, or dislike

Horrific

Definition: Causing horror

Criminal

Definition: Guilty of crime

Those three words – revulsion, horrific, criminal – raced through my mind yesterday as I watched day 2 of the impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. No doubt you could find more words to describe the carnage of the riot Trump ordered and fomented. But those above will do…for now.

If you listened closely to House of Representatives managers in the Senate, there was only one conclusion: Trump is guilty.

If the proceeding would have been in a court of law and I was on the jury, I would convict Trump in a second. What I saw and heard in the presentation was almost too much believe for someone – me – who has been involved in government for more than 40 years. Disagreement is one thing. Intentional insurrection is another.

Retired Senator Claire McCaskill put it very well the other day when she said that there comes a time for all elected officials to decide issues that could adversely affect their next election. That, she said, is a time to vote your conscience.

I hope senators will vote their conscience a few days from now. And, if they do, that means conviction of Trump, regardless of how it affects their own election prospects.

Consider these perceptions from David Frum, writing in The Atlantic Magazine:

“The rioters came just 58 steps away from fleeing senators, and within feet of the hiding vice president. Today’s Senate impeachment proceedings told horror stories—and detailed just how close of a call the January 6 attack truly was.

“Up until now, the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump has mostly been a big procedural squabble. But today, grainy security footage offered a visceral reminder of the stakes at hand.

“There is no defense—only complicity. The remorseless, crushing power of the House managers’ evidence, all backed by horrifying real-time audio and video recordings, shuttered any good-faith defense of Trump on the merits of the case.”

Or these from Washington Post writer Dana Milbank:

“Trump’s apologists seem willing to excuse just about anything, even though the impeachment managers are laying out in minute detail the damning evidence showing how the former president conceived, organized, fomented and refused to call off the murderous invasion of the Capitol by his supporters. Republican senators seem not to care how close the insurrectionists came to assassinating Vice President Mike Pence (who we now know was hiding in the Capitol the entire time of the attack) and killing or taking hostage senators and members of the House.”

Pictures of the hanging noose near the Capitol steps left an indelible picture of what Trump’s rioters wanted to do to Vice President Mike Pence. And they came close to succeeding, perhaps only feet from him.

Still, I am still not certain whether the dramatic and effective House manager presentation will change many Republican votes in the Senate. Perhaps some, but not enough to convict.

Pro-Trump observer, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, summarized the situation – I think accurately — when he told Wall Street Journal late yesterday:

“The footage is horrific. They (the House managers) spent a great deal of time focusing on the horrific acts of violence that were played out by the criminals, but the language from the president doesn’t come close to meeting the legal standard for incitement.”

On the other hand, lead House manager, Maryland Representative Jami Raskin, put it very well when he said, “if what Trump did does not amount to an impeachable offense, then nothing does.”

Revulsion. Horrific. Criminal.

Yes.

February 9, 2021 by davefiskum

WHAT ARE REPUBLICAN LEADERS THINKING?

That question in the headline is hard to answer, especially as the impeachment trial looms in the U.S. Senate in only a few hours.

Over the past couple weeks, we have witnessed two actions by supposed Republican leaders in Congress – they considered removing Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from a leadership position for her vote to impeach Trump, and they left Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in place on House committees to continue her diatribe against all things true and honest.

One possible answer is that Republicans are not thinking.

Another is that they are expressing fealty to the worst president in U.S. history, Donald Trump, who, to some in the party, still appears to be the leader of it.

Or, perhaps House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is trying to play both sides against the middle, and, thus, retain his leadership position – if you can call what he does leading. He bows to the far right by supporting Greene, while saying he wants a big tent by not removing Cheney.

That’s called having it both ways.

By the way, I could often make the same claims about Democrats – they weren’t thinking or wanted to have it both ways.

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson dealt with this when he wrote:

“On the morning of February 3, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy sat in the Capitol Rotunda for a service honoring fallen U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died during the January 6 attack by domestic terrorists.

“On the evening of February 3, McCarthy asserted that the big tent of the Republican Party should include those who have advocated political violence.

“All in a day’s work for the United States’ most disgraceful political leader.

“The Republican legislator whom McCarthy has tried to shield from the consequences of sedition, Greene from Georgia, said in 2019 that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ‘guilty of treason . . . a crime punishable by death.’

“She endorsed the view that Pelosi might be quickly removed by ‘a bullet to the head.’ She approved of the suggestion that federal law enforcement agents hostile to then-President Donald Trump should be executed. Responding to a proposal that former president Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton be murdered, Greene wrote: ‘Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient.’”

In a move that illustrated punishment for bad deeds, after Republican leaders failed to act, the all Democrats and a few Republicans in the House stripped Greene of her committee assignments. Of course, she reacted by saying that she’d go after Democrats, who knows by what means.

I suspect these shenanigans in D.C. were not the main reason why thousands of Oregonians have left the Republican Party, but perhaps they added to the distaste for intentional dissension.

The number of party defections was first reported last week as being about 6,000, then, a couple days later, grew to 11,000. Probably still growing.

No wonder.

A close-to-home-reason for Oregon defections likely was that the official Republican Party in the state adopted a resolution calling the attack on the U.S. Capitol a “false flag” operation.

In response, Republicans in the Oregon House of Representatives distanced themselves from the state party and no less than long-time Republican Knute Buhler, who had run for governor and Congress, dispatched his Republican credentials to the dust-bin. He said he no longer understood what the party stood for, if anything.

If I were a Republican, I’d do the same thing. But I have been unaffiliated for many years now and like that ability to function as an independent.

For me, independence is better that affiliation with either Republicans or Democrats, neither of which get credit from me for interest in good government for most Americans.

Meanwhile, even as I write this, impeachment will be front and center in D.C. today.

Democrats say the process will deter future impeachable acts late in a president’s term and they hope to put Republicans on the defensive by videos showing the January 6 riots fomented, they will say, by Trump.

Wall Street Journal editorial writers contend today that deterring future presidential illegal actions is unlikely if, as expected, Trump is acquitted.

“A greater rebuke,” they add, “would come from letting Trump suffer in isolation, without power and with the stigma of a bi-partisan House impeachment vote.”

And, so goes our excuse for politics these days.

February 7, 2021 by davefiskum

IT’S TIME FOR GOLF TO MAKE A BREAK FROM TRUMP

Okay, I like golf more than professional football. That’s one reason why I write about golf on this day, the day of the Super Bowl.

I may watch part of the game, but won’t be glued to the TV.

So on with golf.

The headline in this blog first appeared in a story in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago, so I cannot take credit for it.

But, I do agree with it.

Trump and golf shouldn’t mix. At least not officially.

For one reason, when he has played the game, he does not abide by any rules. No surprise there because rules don’t matter to him in any context, including politics.

Here’s the way the Wall Street Journal wrote about the subject:

“On the day after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a reckless mob of President Trumpsupporters — a throng spurred on by the president himself — it might make sense that Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player could have woken up, checked out the headlines, and said to themselves, ‘You know, I ought to decline that Presidential Medal of Freedom after all.’ Accepting an honor fromthis president at this time isn’t showing respect to the office. It’s willingly associating with a delusional leader who has done his best to dismantle our democracy.

“But the problem doesn’t lie just with Sorenstam and Player, two of golf’s all-time greats, who followed through with long-held plans to receive their honors from Trump in a private ceremon. The problem is with golf as a whole, because the sport has entangled itself with this embattled presidentand apparently doesn’t see a way to make a clean break.”

The PGA of America may have started an official break-up when it decided not to hold its signature PGA Championship at Trump’s facility in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2022. Trump blanched at the move, but it was about time it occurred and it is likely that other Trump venues will be excluded from playing rotations.

The Journal continued:

“In choosing to go to the White House, Player and Sorenstam — natives of South Africa and Sweden, respectively — missed their chance to say, ‘Enough is enough.’

“Of all the traits golf purports to teach, honor is foremost among them. Golfers honor the rules, whether anyone is watching them or not. They honor their competitors by honestly recording their scores. In a casual amateur match, there is no referee. There is only trust that two players are reporting what happened truthfully.”

Trump has torched those traits from the highest position in the nation, not just as a weekend hacker. This is worth noting because his tentacles are deep in the sport and it’s past time to declaw those tentacles.

Let him play his own game. Just don’t endorse his overt and abhorrent conduct by contributing to his bottom line.

February 6, 2021 by davefiskum

A TALE OF VACCINE SUCCESS

This will be an unusual story because, if you read newspapers or watch television coverage of the vaccination roll-out, your sense is that there is nothing but problems.

To be sure, there are problems and no doubt there will be more with such a huge undertaking – vaccinating the entire population.

But my recent positive experience is worth noting.

Yesterday, my wife and I headed from our winter home in La Quinta, California, west to the town of Beaumont along I-10. There, we were scheduled to get the first Pfizer vaccine at 9:15 a.m., an appointment I was lucky enough to book about a week ago with the help of a senior citizen center.

Yes, I am senior citizen.

We arrived in Beaumont about an hour early and parked in a line of about 30 cars. Before long, we started moving and, in about 10 minutes, we were parked in a school lot and heading into a building where we would receive the shots.

Inside the building, the line was not long, even with marked social distancing separations.

All we had to do was present our identification and a copy of our e-mailed appointment confirmation.

Soon, the friendly staff summoned us to a table and, in only a matter of seconds, my wife and I received the shots. I almost didn’t feel it, expecting something different, given what I had heard through grapevines about the size of the needle and keeping the needle in the arm long enough to deposit all of the vaccine.

But, easy.

Then, we were told to sit for about 15 minutes to assure that we did not have any reactions.

We did not.

Overall, in about an hour, we were out of the vaccine site and headed home, with a commitment for a second dose on or about February 26.

As a former journalist, I have had questions about how many outlets cover the vaccine process. It appears they find something wrong and then focus on that to the exclusion of cases where processes work well.

Two of the positive cases have been in Beaumont and, by many accounts, back in our hometown, Salem, Oregon. There, Salem Health has received plaudits for running, with help from the Oregon National Guard, a site at the State Fairgrounds that has used the Pfizer vaccine to good success.

Media coverage strikes me a little like coverage of a snowstorm in Oregon. When you see what amounts to a snapshot, you are left with impression that cars and trucks are stuck all over the place and it is snowing everywhere. No. It is not. It is a snapshot.

Much the same could be said vaccine distribution. I say reporters should take a series of snapshots, including the good and the bad, and then produce fairer accounts.

Meanwhile, regardless of media coverage, I just hope vaccine distribution processes continue unabated so we can reach herd immunity, which, I know, will take many more months.

February 4, 2021 by davefiskum

VIC ATIYEH: REMEMBER HIM? A GOVERNOR WHO SERVED WITH DISTINCTION AS A “TRUSTEE”

It has been said that there are two types of elected officials – trustees and delegates.

Trustees try to use their minds and their experience to make good decisions once they win elective office.

Delegates believe they have been elected by certain folks and, thus, should do the bidding of those folks.

Of course, these definitions are generalizations. Elected officials often act in various ways, not just one.

But one of best trustees I have known was the late Vic Atiyeh, the last Republican governor in Oregon, now more than 35 years ago. In the spirit of full disclosure, I had the privilege of working for Victor, including as his press secretary, so I am a biased source.

He performed very well as a trustee, not concerned about his next election prospects, bur rather about what was best for “his “ state, Oregon.

I was reminded of this the other day when one of my friends, Jim Moore, an experienced Pacific University political scholar, wrote a blog about “delegates and trustees.”

Moore’s words are worth considering.

]”In the 18th century,” he wrote, “Edmund Burke had an idea that helps us to make sense out of the roles of those in elective office. He posited that there were two models of behavior.

“First, the elected officer could be a delegate. A delegate’s job was to carry out the wishes of the people as well as possible. Back in the late 1700s, this was hard to figure out at times, but, in the 21st Century, a delegate would be reliant on polling of constituents, communications from voters, and, inevitably, the waves of ideas that spill out of social media. A delegate stayed in office as long as the will of the people was carried out.

“Second, an elected officer could be a trustee. A trustee’s job was to use judgment to deal with political questions. The role of the electorate was to choose the officeholder with the skills and experience to weigh issues and make political decisions that were the best for the entire polity, regardless of how that polity thought at any particular time.”

In his article, Moore went on to enunciate a proposition, with which I strongly agree. He lauded Atiyeh as a man of principle, believing himself to be a “trustee” of the public good, not just a “delegate.”

A key principle for Atiyeh was that he didn’t work to get credit for himself for doing good things in government. He just wanted to be involved in the good things and let credit go where it goes, with no designs on claiming it.

What Moore wrote in conclusion: “I don’t know what the future will bring, but my strong sense is that we need people like former Governor Vic Atiyeh to stand up, on either side, and take more trustee-like positions. Vic (whose biography is sitting on the floor of my office awaiting even more cuts until it is shorter than 450 pages) made a decision before he even ran for his first office in 1958 — he would make governing decisions without considering what it would do for his chances at re-election.

“He did not follow this 100 per cent of the time, but he did it enough that he became comfortable being an outsider in the Oregon Legislature on many, many issues.”

Just think of what it would be like if we had more “trustees” like Atiyeh in government these days. The fact is that we, as citizens, would see better decisions. We might not always agree with the decisions, but they’d be better, not just linked to the latest poll.

February 3, 2021 by davefiskum

IMPEACHMENT PROS AND CONS

Why would I feel compelled to write about impeachment from my post out West far from the action?

Well, I am a bit of a political junkie, so the subject interests me. Plus, a lot is at stake for Americans and our system of government as we watch impeachment processes play out in Washington, D.C.

And, as with many political issues these days, I can understand both sides – those in favor of holding former president Donald Trump to account for provoking insurrection, and those not in favor of doing so because, after all, he is no longer in office as president and it’s time to focus on the new president’s priorities, the leading one of which is to control the virus.

It appears that there are not votes in the Senate to convict Trump, so it strikes me that there could be a compromise: Censure him for his reprehensible conduct so as not to allow such conduct to escape punishment.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are moving ahead with plans to argue impeachment before the Senate.

They have sought out new cellphone footage of the January 6 Capitol insurrection, as well as updated details about injured police officers.

They want to present the Senate with fresh evidence that reveals what Trump knew in advance of the rampage at the Capitol, as well as how his words and actions influenced those who participated to lay siege to the Capitol.

Overall, the rioting left five dead, including a Capital police officer. In addition, two officers, one with the D.C. Police Department, died by suicide.

As reported by the Washington Post, the effort to present new video evidence and witness testimony appears designed to make Republican senators as uncomfortable as possible as they prepare to vote to acquit Trump, as most have indicated they will do.

The prospect of injured police officers describing the brutality of pro-Trump rioters to Republicans who regularly present themselves as advocates of law enforcement could make for an extraordinary, nationally televised scene.

Republican votes to acquit appear to be based on the contention that it is unconstitutional to try a former president on impeachment charges. That spares them from having to evaluate Trump’s conduct.

The “he’s out of office” theory is contested by many constitutional scholars, but has gained a foothold in the GOP ranks.

But, as I wrote earlier, if there are no consequences for subversion and insurrection, it may encourage future presidents to do the same thing.

One person who wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal put it this way:

“If there are no consequences for subversion and insurrection, it may encourage future presidents to do the same thing. Nothing is more important in a democracy than the peaceful transfer of power.”

So, when all is said and done, it appears the most extreme punishment for Trump – conviction after impeachment – won’t occur. I say head for censure instead and, then, get about important business in this country sans Trump.

February 3, 2021 by davefiskum

IMPEACHENT PROS AND CONS