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.

As I watched the set-to between President Donald Trump (that title still is not easy to type after one year of being true) and his former senior advisor, Steve Bannon, I couldn’t help but have this thought:

Trump and Bannon could have written the diatribes together, wedded as they are to hyperbole, overstatement and harsh words.

Neither man now likes the other even though they worked together closely during the campaign and during the first six months in the White House.

Washington Post reporter James Hohmann had a similar perspective in a column this week.

“None of this is normal,” he wrote. “Try to picture Barack Obama declaring that David Axelrod had ‘lost his mind,’ George W. Bush saying that Karl Rove ‘is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look,’ or Bill Clinton’s lawyers sending James Carville a cease-and-desist letter threatening ‘imminent’ legal action.

“Conversely, imagine Robby Mook saying that Chelsea Clinton is ‘dumb as a brick.’”

All of those scenarios are inconceivable, but not in the Trump reign. It’s just another week in this chaotic White House, which once again plunged into crisis mode after the publication of excerpts from a forthcoming book by Michael Wolff called “Fire and Fury,” which relies heavily on quotes from Bannon.

Hohmann continues: “President Trump’s insistence that Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist and a top aide at the White House until five months ago, was a mere ‘staffer’ who had ‘very little to do with our historic victory’ is akin to Joseph Stalin trying to erase Leon Trotsky from the history of the Russian Revolution.

“This is part of a well-established pattern for the thrice-married Trump, who treats partners and aides as disposable once they’ve outlived their usefulness to him and downplays their roles after they run into trouble.”

CBS’s John Dickerson got into the act this week with this comment: “Saying Steve Bannon has nothing to do with Trump or his presidency is like saying you’re not married to your ex-wife. It may true at the moment, but it doesn’t erase the marriage.”

Loyalty is not worth two cents in the Trump Administration. Bannon, unscrupulous as he is, is not loyal to Trump. And Trump, ever the egotist, is not loyal to Bannon.

Both appear to be out for what they see as their own good, the public be damned.

My view? They deserve each other!