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.

To refresh your memory, I am the director of the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering and I enjoy complete authority over how the Department runs.

In that way, I guess I resemble fired FBI Director James Comey who appeared to believe that he reported to no one and was responsible only to himself. Beyond that, there are no comparisons between me and the now-departed director.

Here, then, are new quotes worth remembering.

FROM WALL STREET JOURNAL (WSJ) EDITORIAL WRITERS: The various Russia probes will continue with even more vigor. Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, a Comey loyalist, told Congress this week that he has seen no attempt to interfere with its investigation. He said the FBI has ample resources for the job and that he wasn’t aware of a request by Mr. Comey for more. This contradicted another media report.

If Mr. Trump hoped to cover something up, sacking the FBI director is exactly the wrong way to do it. Every G-man with a mediocre lead will leak if he thinks politicians are trying to sit on evidence. The next FBI director will be watched like a Russian agent for any hint of political favoritism. The House and Senate intelligence committees have also been given new impetus for thorough investigations.

COMMENT: I agree. Even if Comey deserved to be fired for failing to understand that he was not a free agent, all Trump’s firing did was to give new emphasis to the investigation of alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

AND THIS ALSO FROM THE WSJ: The main source of dysfunction is the man at the top. The President is his own worst enemy—impulsive, thin-skinned, undisciplined, by now readers know the story. Every time his supporters think he might finally be appreciating the weight of the job, or the gravity of a President’s words, he goes on a Twitter rant.

Rather than focus on his agenda, he keeps the Russia pot boiling by railing against critics. Health care—what’s that? He faults his communications team for mistakes, but they are usually based on incomplete information or an attempt to clean up the boss’s effusions.

Mr. Trump has assembled many able advisers and officials who are trying to serve the country and steer the mercurial President from his own worst instincts. If Mr. Trump won’t heed their counsel, he really will turn into Jimmy Carter.

COMMENT: No more neesd to be said than that Trump is his own worst enemy. Everything he does seems to detract from a job-creating agenda, which ought to be a top priority for America.

DANIEL HENNINER IN THE WSJ: No one outside Washington should be misled by the choruses calling for an “independent” prosecutor. This is special pleading.

For the political class it relieves them of responsibility for policing their own neighborhood. The media likes these prosecutors because they become Inspector Javerts, melodramatically chasing their targets for years, more often than not destroying reputations. The Justice Department’s guidelines make clear these special prosecutors are accountable to virtually no one. They don’t produce justice; they endanger it.

COMMENT: Given how past independent prosecutors have performed – emphasis on that word, performed – the last thing we need is to appoint another one. We ought to use existing channels, including in Congress, to get to the bottom of the Russian deal – or to determine, in fact, if there is a bottom.

FROM OREGON EDITORIAL WRITERS ON CHANGES IN OREGON’S TAX SYSTEM: If enacted at the level Warner (Paul Warner, the state’s chief revenue officer) described, a gross receipts tax, along with the elimination of the current corporate income tax and a slight lowering of personal income tax levels, would combine to raise $637 million of net revenue for the state in the next budget cycle.

Such a tax plan is one of several ways lawmakers are looking to close the state’s $1.6 billion budget shortfall for the coming two years. They’re also considering spending cuts and taxes on health care providers.

COMMENT: It would have been good if leaders in Salem had moved more quickly to devise a tax and spend deal – increasing certain taxes and cutting certain spending. It’s nearly too late to do so now, given the inevitable controversy over both parts of the equation.

FROM AN OREGONIAN NEWSPAPER STORY ON HEALTH CARE TAXES: The governor also sounded optimistic in a statement Thursday. “While there is still work to be done, I am optimistic about the progress we’ve made in the last few weeks with legislative leaders and stakeholders to find a solution that ensures quality health care continues across our state,” Brown said.

Solving the $882 million shortfall in the Oregon Health Authority budget is key to closing the $1.6 billion hole in the next two-year general fund budget. In April, top Democrat budget writers warned they would have to throw 350,000 low-income Oregonians off Medicaid and cut a number of other vital programs unless the Legislature raises $575 million in new revenue.

COMMENT: On this subject, one of the main challenges will be, once the taxes have been imposed and revenue collected, to assure that the money actually is devoted to health care and not siphoned off to other programs. Siphoning has occurred since the health care taxes were first imposed in 2003.

FROM COLUMNIST DANA MILBANK IN THE WASHINGTON POST: The very same president (Donald Trump) registered the approval of just 36 per cent of the country in a new Quinnipiac University poll. When Americans were asked to volunteer a word that comes to mind when they think of Trump, the top answer was “idiot.”

COMMENT: I am not a fan of Milbank because he only values the left, but his report on the Quinnipac poll is interesting. If I was polled about Trump, I might not say idiot. Perhaps buffoon, egotist, self-absorbed. Or many others.