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.

When Senator Bob Corker took on President Donald Trump a few days ago, he hit on what could very well be an apt description of the Trump White House.

He called it “an adult day care center.”

Of course, Trump was incensed and engaged in tweet-combat with Corker whom he belittled even as the senator was set to make good on a pledge not to run for more than two terms.

Despite Trump, the Washington Post took on the task of checking out the day care center analogy and, through confidential conversations with 18 White House aides, confirmed at last part of the description of a White House operation where a president is impulsive, impetuous and difficult to manage.

Here is a summary of some of the Post’s findings about aides spending a significant part of their time devising ways to rein in and control the president.

• During the campaign, when President Trump’s team wanted him to stop talking about a certain issue — such as when he attacked a Gold Star military family — they sometimes presented him with polls demonstrating how the controversy was harming his candidacy.
• During the transition, when aides needed Trump to decide on a looming issue or appointment, they often limited him to a shortlist of two or three options and urged him to choose one.
• Now in the White House, when advisers hope to prevent Trump from making what they think is an unwise decision, they frequently try to delay his final verdict — hoping he may reconsider after having time to calm down.
• “If you visit the White House today, you see aides running around with red faces, shuffling paper and trying to keep up with this president,” said one Republican in frequent contact with the administration. “That’s what the scene is.”
• One defining feature of managing Trump is frequent praise, which can leave his team in what seems to be a state of perpetual compliments. The White House pushes out news releases overflowing with top officials heaping flattery on Trump. In one particularly memorable Cabinet meeting this year, each member went around the room lavishing the president with accolades.

By contrast, the president’s chief of staff, retired military general John Kelly, said he was not brought into the top job to control anything (or say anything), but, rather, to manage the flow of information to the president “so that he can make the best decisions.”

According to the Washington Post report, Kelly also praised Trump as “a decisive guy” and “a very thoughtful man” whose sole focus is on advancing American interests. “He takes information in from every avenue he can receive it,” Kelly said. “I restrict no one, by the way, from going in to see him. But when we go in to see him now, rather than onesies and twosies, we go in and help him collectively understand what he needs to understand to makes these vital decisions.”

Still, Corker’s analogy, the Post says, underscored the uneasy atmosphere within the West Wing, where criticism of the president’s behavior is only whispered.

It is a fact that all White House staffs adjust to the style of a president. There is no choice. But, in this case, the perceptions flowing from the Post story tend to underscore the sensitive nature of Trump who responds to every perceived slight with a tweet-crusade of his own.

With all the tall tasks on the nation’s to-do list, one can only hope that Trump avoids his I-been-hurt-by-what-say tendency and gets about completing items on that to-do list – as along as one or more of them do not involve going to war with North Korea, Iran or some other nation.