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.

This department, one of two I control as director, is open again. It was open last week, too, but there have been a lot of good quotes recently, so are a few.

Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ): “Maybe the 70-year-old president is too old to change, and Americans must simply accept his chaotic, unpredictable, impulsive nature. But if Mr. Trump can’t recognize he’s the cause of the turmoil, he risks creating a hard cap on his approval ratings in the low 40s or high 30s. This will drain his power, make it difficult to achieve his agenda, and turn him into a lame duck well before normal. If Mr. Trump can’t change his ways, he will fail the people who entrusted him with their hopes.

“This presidency has reached a critical moment. For months, true-blue Trump supporters grimaced at tweets and winced at needless controversies, but stood firm. Now many are questioning whether their man is up to the job. Mr. Trump will not restore their confidence with the behavior he’s shown so far.

“Americans want a president who is steadier, humbler, better disciplined, more honest and fully engaged on creating jobs, paychecks and prosperity—the issues that got Mr. Trump to the White House. The clock is running. Either he changes or he fails.”

Comment: Rove, with his substantial Washington, D.C. experience, is accurate again. Either President Trump changes or he will fail. So, failure is likely; change is not.

Daniel Henninger in the WSJ: “After the past two weeks, one must ask: How many parallel universes can the U.S. political system endure?

“Let us enumerate the celestial bodies traveling along independent orbits just now: Donald Trump, Sean Spicer, the Beltway press chorus, the White House’s Borgia factions, 2018’s at-risk congressional Republicans, the Schumer Democrats, the mosquito clouds of social media, and the various people working in what little exists so far of the Trump government.

“One more parallel universe deserves mention: the Trump vote, which decided the 2016 election. Oh, them.”

Comment: Whether you voted for Trump or not, it is hard for all of us to watch the travails of the president as he scrambles around to stem controversies of his own making. I say that with an assurance that I wish the best for America, which is near impossible with Trump at the helm.

Dorothy Rabinowitz in a WSJ Review of television program, Bannon’s War: “The subject of this documentary has never yielded in his regard for the infliction of shock and chaos as a political tactic, according to the commentators, mainly journalists, assembled for ‘Bannon’s War,’ a ‘Frontline’ film on the life and career of Steve Bannon. It’s a perception regularly echoed in this telling portrait of the adviser primarily responsible for shaping Donald Trump’s message for most of the presidential campaign—and the one delivered in President Trump’s memorably dark inaugural address.”

Comment: The upcoming documentary could explain a lot, confirming that Bannon, who has had the ear of the president for months, focuses on “shock and chaos” as means to a political end. Trump’s strange and foreboding inaugural address was only the first step down a dark path. If Bannon is now moving to the background, good.

Too much to expect, I know, but wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air if sound arguments on policy – health care, taxes infrastructure, international relations – could dominate our political debate?

Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post: “Invariably, the president contradicts statements from his communications team and other officials, and blurts the truth. As counterintuitive as it seems, Trump is a truth-teller among spinmeisters.”

Comment: An interesting thought from Parker, but I disagree. Suggesting that Trump tells the truth does not square with the facts. Most of the time his huge ego takes over and blurts out what could be called “alternative facts,” certainly not truth.

From the editorial columns of the Oregonian newspaper: “The federal government pays by far the larger share of Medicaid costs, but Oregon still shoulders millions in reimbursements. Will money need to be paid back? To whom and by whom? As those questions are parsed, the Oregon Health Authority must accurately portray its financial commitments to the Legislature, awash in spreadsheets that detail money in, money out. Let this be the last headache in the state’s Cover Oregon hangover, a record-keeping mess deepened by the explosion in the number of Medicaid enrollees under Obamacare.”

Comment: This issue – inaccurate Medicaid payments – is becoming bigger by the moment. In this editorial, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson takes credit for unearthing the issue by way of his state agency audit function. Perhaps. But the Oregonian is also right to paint this as one of the last hangovers from the Cover Oregon scandal. Still, getting past this issue with an accurate summary of the real costs is a challenge for the Oregon Health Authority and its very capable director, Lynne Saxton.