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 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 a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

One of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, got at least two things right this week in a piece she wrote for the Wall Street Journal.

The First Right: Trump said he would build something, do something.

Noonan reported that “in his morning Axios newsletter, Mike Allen said Capitol Hill is currently overstuffed with legislation, and GOP strategists say there’s a new plan to roll out a big program to rebuild roads and airports. They’ll push it off until next year. The thinking is that Democrats are likelier to back such a costly scheme closer to the midterm elections.

“That struck me as exactly wrong. The first year’s legislative agenda defines a new administration. Early programs stand out before everything, in the following three years, becomes a blur. Infrastructure is part of why Donald Trump was hired—he’s the builder, the magnate.

“It was for his supporters not a secondary but a primary issue—build something, do something. The unions and trade organizations back it, as would Americans who are nervous now whenever they go through a tunnel. Big endeavors can be promising in ways that aren’t always calculable. You can add a mentoring program to get teenagers, especially boys, off their couches and into the world of workers, especially men, who know how to do something and can teach it. That would be valuable to our culture.”

The Second Right: Trump announces and asserts. He doesn’t make a case for his proposals.

Noonan wrote: “An odd thing about the president—and this has contributed to the general lostness of Washington—is that he doesn’t perform a primary and obvious function of presidents, which is to argue for things. You make a decision, unveil a program, and make a case for its excellence. The other side then argues back. In the ensuing back-and-forth, voters get the contours of what’s being proposed.

“This president doesn’t argue, he only announces. He asserts. Previous presidents in their early speeches were always making the case for a certain advancement. Not to do so is a waste of the biggest mic in the world.”

Think of these two Noonan quotes:

• Trump got elected “to build something, to do something.” This is an obvious anti-thesis to the tendency in Washington, D.C to disagree and debate until it hurts, then not take any action, leaving stalemate in place.  Trump does the reverse.  He acts.

• Trump “doesn’t argue, he only announces. He asserts.” That’s not the traditional way of political figures who may announce and assert, but then go on to make a case for their position. Trump appears to feel that, when he says something, it is a true fact, without the need for argument.

My view is that all of us need to get used to this new presidential style. We don’t have to like it, but we should just get used to it. It may not be pretty or traditional and it won’t change.

But the Trump Administration should be judged, not on daily utterings or tweets, but on the longer-term challenges of getting a new job done in the bone-jarring back and forth of the Nation’s Capitol.

In politics, there are short-term and a long-term perspectives. The easy tendency is to look only at short-term considerations. I say take a long-term view.