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.

Why, you may ask, do I feel compelled to comment on this, given that there has so much coverage of the tension between President Donald Trump and former FBI Director James Comey, not to mention that I live 3,000 miles away from the fray?

Well, I don’t.

Feel compelled, that is. I just want to participate in my usual way – by writing something, which helps me to think more clearly. About a national issue that, no doubt, will continue to dominate the political debate for weeks.

So, here goes – and I will do so in the way of proposing answers to questions, not producing a narrative.

• Did Trump Commit Obstruction of Justice?

Probably not, though smarter legal minds than me will be rendering their verdicts.

Writing in the Washington Post, Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and a contributing editor at National Review, put it this way:

“James B. Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee will no doubt embolden those who believe we already know enough to conclude that President Trump obstructed justice by leaning on the then-FBI director to halt a criminal investigation of Michael Flynn. But nothing Comey said alters the fact that this claim remains fatally flawed in two critical respects: It overlooks both a requirement for corrupt intent and the principle of executive discretion.

“The arguments for presidential obstruction here tend to omit the statute’s most important word: ‘Corruptly.’ Not every form of interfering with an investigation, or even the closing down of an investigation, is felony obstruction. Only corrupt ones. Prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused not only acted intentionally but also with an awareness that actions violated the law.

“This is important because the president is the chief executive. We like to think of law enforcement as insulated from politics, and we certainly aspire to politics that does not undermine the rule of law. In our system, however, it is simply not the case that law enforcement is independent of political leadership. The FBI and Justice Department are not a separate branch of government. They are subordinate to the president. In fact, they do not exercise their own power; the Constitution vests all executive power in the president. Prosecutors and FBI agents are delegates.

“That means that when they exercise prosecutorial discretion, they are exercising the president’s power. Obviously, the president cannot have less authority to exercise his power than his subordinates do.”

• If not obstruction, then what?

Good question. My answer is that President Trump has acted stupidly. This is either because he is a newcomer to national politics or because he doesn’t care, so he avoids, in a ham-handed way, the normal protocols of handling power in the Nation’s Capitol.

In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Gerald Seib wrote this:

“A basic set of rules for surviving and thriving in the nation’s capital—well understood by Washington veterans—would include: Don’t make an enemy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, keep potential enemies inside the tent and, above all, remember that it usually isn’t the action but the appearance of a cover-up that brings real trouble.”

Trump understands none of this. He ran and won as an outsider. Now he tries to continue the outsider façade, but cannot in the ways of Washington, D.C. He ends up compromising his own agenda. His ego rules. He is always the most important person in the room. He tweets off the top of his head. He behaves like what he is, which is a narcissist.

• Who is the hero here, Trump or Comey?

To that, I answer neither.

Here is the way Kimberly Strassel put it in a Wall Street Journal column:

“Mostly he (Comey) pronounced on what is—and is not—proper in any given situation: When handling investigations, interacting with the president, or releasing information. By the end, something had become clear. Mr. Comey was not merely a player in the past year’s palaver. He was the player.

The Wall Street Journal goes on: “Comey describes an FBI director who essentially answers to no one. The police powers of government are awesome and often abused, and the only way to prevent or correct abuses is to report to elected officials who are accountable to voters. A director musty resist intervention to obstruct an investigation, but he and the agency must be accountable or risk becoming the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover.”

I add that, if I had been president – perish that thought, by the way — I would have fired Comey, too. Even as FBI director, he should not have conducted himself as an independent actor on his own stage. He fouled up matters involving the private e-mail investigation of Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as relationships with the new president.

The fact is that the FBI director reports to the attorney general first, and then to the president.

• Who benefits from all of this over the last days?

My answer is no one. Some will say that Comey came off looking like a hero, which, I suppose, is what he intended by his appearance. Others will say that Trump escaped, at least so far, any notion of criminal conduct.

To me, both looked like what they are, in very different ways – consumed by their own egos to the detriment of the country. We face huge issues these days – reforming health care, reforming national tax policy, re-building roads and bridges, and many others. They fall into the abyss of interpersonal conflicts that benefit no one.