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.

I was struck the other day by a reaction from a friend of mine in response to a general conversation, based on media stories, of ethical questions surrounding the conduct of former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber.

This friend shrugged his shoulders and said something along this line – “well, they’re all crooked and on the take.”

By “they,” he meant all persons who hold public office.

Given headlines around the country, I guess it is understandable for this friend to take a jaundiced view and assume everyone is on the take. But, of course, that is not the case.

To use an old image, there may rotten apples in the barrel, but not every one is rotten. The point is that everyone in public office is not crooked.

A recent study by the PEW Research Center found that “a major factor in the public’s negative attitudes about the federal government is its deep skepticism of elected officials.

“Asked to name the biggest problem with government today, many citizens cite Congress, politics or a sense of corruption or undue outside influence. At the same time, large majorities of the public view elected officials as out of touch, self-interested, dishonest and selfish.”

In the PEW study, only 19 per cent of respondents say elected officials in Washington try hard to stay in touch with voters back home; 77 per cent say elected officials lose touch with the people quickly.

The study goes on to say that a majority of the public doubts the commitment of elected officials to put the country’s interests ahead of their own. Roughly three-quarters say elected officials put their own interests ahead of the country’s interests, while just 22 per cent say elected officials put the interests of the country first.

The PEW study underscores my friend’s skepticism, if not cynicism, about government.

One of the problems is that ethical lapses, or “on-the-take” failures, always get more publicity than what is accorded to officials who function within the bounds of ethics and honesty.

As a lobbyist for more than 25 years, I have seen both kinds of elected officials – those who put their own interests first and those who stand for the public interest. Frankly, there have been more of the latter than the former.

That’s why I support what one of my bosses told me back in my days in Oregon state government. He said, “the easiest thing to do is to be cynical about government.” Instead, he advocated a realistic approach to government, believing that our representative form, with all of its frailties, is better than whatever is in second place.

So, my goal – as well as my advice – is to continue to be skeptical about government, not cynical.

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.

Like many of you, I grew up holding newspapers in my hands – yes, the ink rubbed off – and I loved doing it.

So much so that I followed one of my dreams, which was to become a newspaper reporter.

When newspapers no longer exist, it will be a sad day for me because, while I do read some newspapers on-line, I also love having newsprint in my hands. My kids are different; they rarely have newspapers at their fingertips. So much for the differences in generations.

National Public Radio posted this part of a blog the other day:

“In a way, Jim Romenesko has become a newspaper obituary writer — except he doesn’t write obituaries of people, he chronicles the demise of American newspapers.

For National Public Radio, “it’s Romenesko’s job to cull through the news of the media industry and post stories of interest. Because of the acceleration of dead and dying dailies in the country, Romenesko’s blog has turned into a scrolling roll call of bad news. He links to story after story describing the shifting journalistic landscape.

“For many readers who love newspapers, it’s a sad state of affairs. If you clicked on Romenesko — as the blog is popularly known — over the past few days, here is essentially what you saw: “Washington Post profit falls 77 per cent in fourth quarter,” “Will Rupert Murdoch end up owning the New York Times and Los Angeles Times?” “Hearst says it will sell or close the San Francisco Chronicle if cuts aren’t made in a hurry,” “Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News owner files for bankruptcy protection.”

“And that’s only a few of the entries.

“Sprinkled among the list of sick-and-shut-in big-city newspapers were notices of others that are ailing and failing, such as the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, which published its last issue Friday. And an announcement that the American Society of Newspaper Editors has canceled its 2009 convention in April because of stress within the industry. And a slew of raging debates about whether newspapers can be saved, where news will come from in the future and how it will be delivered.”

Well, if you are a newspaper lover and looking for some good news, there was just a bit in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal. Several letters to the editor were written by young people to offer praise and perspective on a piece by Barton Swaim, which was entitled, “In Praise of the News On Paper.”

One letter said this: “In the 24-hour news cycle, even the reputable on-line outlets have to constantly create new stories and headlines, which leads directly to the always reading, never-informed cycle Mr. Swaim describes. A hard paper is the distilling of that chaos in which the facts as they are, and sometimes informed opinions about those facts, can be digested in a sitting. I suspect consuming news this way also limits the propensity toward outrage and contention that following constantly “breaking news” online seems to engender. That is a thinking individual’s way to consume news, rather than a reactionary’s method. Whether ‘the news on paper’ will persevere, depends entirely on whether we thinking individuals do so.”

This was from Vince Skolny from Los Angeles.

Or, this from another writer, Melissa Lee from Sugar Land, Texas:

“I’m a high-school student. Flipping through each page of the paper exposes me to articles on a variety of topics. In contrast, scrolling through digital news triggers an onslaught of algorithms catered to personal preferences. Follow the trails of “You may also like” and soon all the information on the webpage aligns with one’s individual views.

“A broad understanding of current affairs is best gained from reading the news in print and will help prevent the “echo chamber” and “confirmation bias” that afflict our society.”

It’s worth reading these letters and appreciating the points they make, which is that it is better to be educated by reading words on paper than it is to rely solely on the Internet.

Now, of course the Internet is not bad. It provides a wider scope of information every day than I would otherwise have in my minds, but it also is important to keep in mind the advice in the last letter above – “scrolling through digital news triggers an onslaught of algorithms catered to personal preferences.”

That’s not real news.

So, as newspaper continue to die in this country, use the Internet, but keep it as one source of information and perspective, not the only source.

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.

Mick Mulvaney, who holds two administrative positions in the Trump Administration, made a confession the other day – at least I call it a “confession” — that offends normal sensibilities.

He told James Hohmann, a Washington Post writer who produces the Daily 202 column, that when he, Mulvaney, was in Congress, he met only with lobbyists who had given him money. Hohmann called it a verification of the “corrosive influence of money in politics.”

Here is the way it was reported in Daily 202:

“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mulvaney said. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

Mulvaney, who represented South Carolina in the House from 2011 until President Trump appointed him director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2017, told about 1,300 banking industry executives and lobbyists that they should push lawmakers hard to pursue their “shared agenda.”

He told the crowd that trying to sway legislators is one of the “fundamental underpinnings of our representative democracy,” though his own comments about requiring money for any meeting tended to obscure that view.

To be clear, Hohmann wrote that not all members of Congress operate in this tawdry way.

“Many offices take pride in meeting with people no matter how much money they have given or might in the future.” “But Mulvaney’s comment,” Hohmann added, “appears emblematic of a mentality that pervades Trump’s orbit.”

This account resonated with me because, as the preamble to this blog notes, I was a lobbyist in Oregon for more than 25 years – actually about 40 if you count my time as a state government manager when I handled relations with the legislature.

I never – I say never – found a case where I knew a legislator would decide whether to meet with me based on how much money my clients provided to his or her race.

For us – meaning myself, state lobby colleagues in my firm, and our firm’s clients – giving money to legislative or statewide office candidates was a very serious matter, one we handled carefully to avoid any notion that we wanted to pay for a result. We simply wanted to invest in the candidacies of those who would be thoughtful in how they carried out their office.

We didn’t keep voting records. We kept relationship records.

If the candidate in question had been in office before, the question for us was whether we had access to the office holder and whether he or she would “consider” viewpoints we expressed on behalf of clients. Note, the objective was consideration. If the candidate had not been in office before, we discussed our idea that consideration mattered.

It was NOT whether the candidate had pledged or would pledge his or her vote in any particular way.

This may sound unrealistic, especially if you harbor negative views of the way lobbyists operate. To use an old saw, are there rotten lobbyists who spoil the barrel of lobbyists? Of course, the answer is yes.

But, my experience is that most lobbyists are trying to do the right thing by representing their clients and working to make sure client viewpoints are considered before action is taken on specific pieces of state legislation.

So, debits to Mulvaney and kudos to office holders who operate in an ethical and honest manner, regardless of the effect of “money in politics.”

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 to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was 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.

A piece by Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel caught my attention this week as she proposed a list of better questions for the media to ask James Comey.

She said Comey “is tripping the media light fantastic” as he travels the country to promote his new book, which, it has been said, is short on real news. So, she suggested some harder-hitting questions for the former FBI director.

I won’t repeat those here, but for some reason, the peg for Strassel’s column reminded me of a blog I wrote a year or so ago. It was one that proposed a list of improved questions for legislators in Oregon to ask as they considered bills under consideration at the Capitol.

The four questions listed below are ones frequently ignored as legislators consider the thousands of bills that are introduced every session in Salem.

While not magic answers, asking and answering these questions would produce better government.

So, here they are:

What is the specific problem for which a proposed policy or action is deemed to be the solution?

This question is seldom raised or even discussed. Yet, it should be. Too often, the introduction of a bill is done for just that reason and none other – getting it printed. Legislators then tell constituents they have acted on their behalf. Action, in this case, is just getting a bill printed and that process alone costs thousands of dollars of staff time.

Is there an appropriate role for government to play?  

This is an even more basic question that tests another often-ignored issue: Whether there is the role of government? Government should not insert itself into every issue. So, the best answer to this question could be no. It rarely is.

If there is a role for government, what does the state expect to get for the money it is spending. In other words, what is the expected return on investment?

Return on investment often is a foreign concept in the halls of the legislature. But the concept should be considered in the sense of subjecting government programs – old ones and new ones – to a key test: What results do they achieve? If they don’t produce results, they should be discontinued.

How will government action affect the private sector, especially individual and corporate taxpayers on whom the state or the country depends to fund government?  

This, too, is seldom discussed, at least at the initiative of legislators. Lobbyists for some consumer groups raise the question. So do lobbyists for business. But both often falls on deaf ears. Yet, legislators rely on taxpayers to help keep government afloat.

If legislators are committed to moving on a bill, they should at least consider if there would a better way to act than originally proposed.

If elected officials would ask and answer these questions with a constructively critical eye, we’d see better results in Salem.

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.

I have reflected on the question in the headline for more than a year since Donald Trump took office as president of the United States.

His conduct defies explanation.

Almost everything he does is accompanied by a tweet, which usually criticizes someone, often in harsh words. The media, of course, pays attention to tweets because at least the content feeds the controversy important for ratings and subscriptions.

A recent Daily 202 e-mail from the Washington Post even posited that Trump views himself as his own spokesman even as he has failed to appoint a communications assistant who would work in concert with his press secretary.

No wonder.

If Trump were to make such an appointment, it would be the fifth in only a year.  Tough to speak for Trump.

Here is the way the Daily 202 put it:

“Hope Hicks announced her departure as White House communications director in February, but President Trump has yet to name a replacement. Instead, he continues to do the job himself.

“He drafts talking points. He organizes surrogates. He oversees rapid response. He maintains relationships with key media figures over dinners, rounds of golf and long phone calls. And, of course, he manages his own social media presence.

“Since the 2016 election, five people have now done six stints as Trump’s communications director. One reason it’s an impossible job is that the former reality television star who occupies the Oval Office will always consider himself his own best spokesman.”

Is Trump his own best spokesman? I think not.

As he watches cable TV news, he is not able to focus on promoting his Administration’s agenda if, in fact, it has one. As an illustration of that inability, Trump has spent the last few days watching cable news shows, then castigating former FBI Director James Comey who is out promoting his new book.

If you were president with an agenda, why not let Comey ridicule himself by his shameless promotion and then focus on major issues of the day, such as the United States relationship with Russia, a potential trade war with China and the upcoming meeting with South Korea leader Kim Jong-on?

Various columnists continue to reflect on the question, Who is Donald Trump. Here is a selection of their comments.

From author Joseph Epstein in the Wall Street Journal: “I disapprove of the bragging tweets, the touchiness, the crude put-downs of anyone who disagrees with him (“Little Marco, ” “insecure Oprah, ” “Sloppy Steve, ” and the rest), the unrestrained vulgarity. America has had ignorant, corrupt, vain, lazy presidents before, but in Donald Trump we have the first president who is a genuine boor.”

“The president’s self-generated governing crisis is disturbing. But when paired with authoritarian envy, it is pathetic. An exercise in autocratic jock-sniffing. Other would-be strongmen have turned to Karl Marx for inspiration; for Trump, it is more like the Marx Brothers. Absurdly stereotyped characters — Anthony Scaramucci, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen K. Bannon — pop randomly in and out of well-appointed rooms, while the main character feeds chaos all around him. It is the Duck Soup dictatorship. “

From a Washington Post reporter who does not often write opinion pieces: “As yet another chief of staff twists in the wind, the president makes clear two essential points about how he governs:

“1) Always double down on your position. Through the most trying moments of the past two years, Trump has regularly argued in favor of men on his side who’ve been accused of bad behavior against women.

“2) The president must always be the focus of attention. Aides who get too big for their britches won’t be around for long.”

From columnist Michael Gerson in the Washington Post: “Trump approaches governing like a spectator, often acting as if someone else is really in charge. He seems most comfortable commenting from the sidelines, like an old Fox News viewer yelling at the television. Trump doesn’t know how to do the actual job of president and doesn’t seem aware that he doesn’t know. And few people around him know any better.

“Being president, it turns out, actually requires certain skills. Presidents gain influence through rhetorical leadership — with the tools of inspiration. They gain influence through policy innovation and legislative leadership. They gain influence through motivating the permanent bureaucracy to accept and pursue their agenda.”

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Trump has put a sober conservative on the Supreme Court, and many conservative judges on the lower courts. This provides greater balance in the judiciary. In a split country, split courts—balance—is probably the best we can do.

“The economy is improving. And Mr. Trump helped pass a tax bill that was better—maybe a little, maybe a lot, but certainly better—than what it replaced.

“Not bad for a first year in office!

“So you, moderate, centrist professional, should feel high enthusiasm for Donald Trump. And yet you don’t, not really. What you feel is disquiet, and you know what it’s about: The worrying nature of Mr. Trump himself. You look at his White House and see what appears to be epic instability, mismanagement and confusion. You see his resentments and unpredictability.

“Here is what you try to wrap your head around if you are a centrist or moderate who’s trying to be fair. You think: On some level this is working. And on some level he is crazy.”

So, even a retinue of analysts smarter than me remains convulsed. We have a president in office who is not up to the job he faces in leading this country, not to mention playing a critical role in world affairs.

As voters, we knew that last time around, but we had a dubious choice – Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton. Not sure we made the right one.

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.

Another indication that I sometimes have too much time on my hands is that I think about this question: What would I have wanted to be if not a lobbyist?

First, it doesn’t make much sense to look back at your life and wonder what if. Second, I enjoyed my years as a lobbyist, in part because I had a great list of clients. I was never embarrassed about representing them. Well, in truth, there were a couple that, upon reflection, I would have turned down, but, in the main, nearly all of them were reputable, honest participants in Oregon’s public policy process.

But, back to the question.

Here is my list of other pursuits for me.

1. Be a TV golf commentator

Listening to those currently on the tube leads me to believe that I could do as well as most of them do.

Consider typical phrases. “He or she has a lot of work left to do.” “If he or she would have hit it harder, it would have gone farther.”

Or, consider the phrase that has given commentator Gary Koch almost endless praise. In talking about a putt from golfer Tiger Woods on the tough 17^th green at Sawgrass in Florida, Koch said, “Better than most.”

Well, I guess not a bad turn of phrase in the moment, but, if you look at it for long enough, you are not sure what it means.

Or, finally on the heels of Masters’ tournament week, the phrase uttered by golf TV host Jim Nantz still echoes through the magnolias at Augusta – “a tradition unlike any other.”

2. Be a groundskeeper at Augusta National Golf Course

With Masters’ week in the rear-view mirror, my thoughts continue to go to the iconic course in Augusta, Georgia.

I have been there once for the Masters’ tournament (see my past blog on Masters’ memories), and I would gladly go again to the hallowed grounds in the south.

On one hand, as I reflect on the Masters’, I would be happy to play in the tournament – or at least on the course during non-tournament time. But, since that won’t happen, I have another vocational goal. It is to be a groundskeeper on the course.

That won’t happen either.

3. Be the person at the Masters’ who announces the names of players on the tee

This occurs with only a few words. “Fore, please. (name) now driving.”

I often function as a starter for Oregon Golf Association events, so it is easy to imagine myself at the Masters’, though getting to that position would be a substantial leap.

Still, if I were to make it, standing on the 1^st tee at Augusta Natiional would be a huge thrill.

4. Be a rules official for the United States Golf Association

Writing about goals that won’t occur, I cite this as another aspiration.

I have taken the golf rules test, after a three-day seminar, and it – the test – is incredibly difficult.

The rules are complex, but the problem with the test is that it is does not provide a solid assessment of your knowledge of golf rules. Questions are written in such a way as to be confusing on their face, which makes the rules even more opaque than they are.

Still, if I could master the rules test, I could function as, at least, a local rules official for tournaments run in the state and the region by the Oregon Golf Association, a very competent local association where I currently serve as a volunteer.

If optional jobs for me appear to revolve around golf, that is because they do. Call it my small mind.

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.

For Oregon business interests, last week began with a major development when the Board of Directors of the nascent Oregon Business & Industry (OBI) organization summarily fired its still-new CEO.

Whether business interests can recover from the controversy is a story yet to be told.

For OBI, the issues were several-fold. The new CEO, former legislator Mark Johnson, had apparently used incendiary language to describe a Latino member of the Oregon Legislature. He also had no real experience running a major, new organization feeling its way toward some kind of business consensus on major public policy issues facing the state.

In other words, his original hire was a mistake.

Then, to compound matters, Johnson tried to lead OBI while maintaining his residence in Hood River. Plus, he tried to install his former legislative assistant as the COO of the new organization, though she had moved to Pennsylvania and both she and Johnson presumed she could do the operating officer job from the East Coast.

If you would have added up these failures or stupidities, whichever is the case, you would have concluded that Johnson had to go. He did.

OBI emerged last year after an old-line business organization, Associated Oregon Industries, joined with a progressive upstart, Oregon Business Association.

Business and political leaders had been seeking a merger for years, hoping to forge a proactive, well-funded and, most importantly, unified political force in Salem. The combined organization has 1,700 members and an annual budget around $2.2 million.

OBI has the potential to be a powerful voice in Salem, a prospective counterweight to labor groups that often hold sway with the state’s Democrat majority. That was the prospect raised in 2016 when the business community crushed a union-backed initiative, Measure 97, that would have raised corporate taxes by $3 billion.

In practice, however, the merger proved difficult. The trade group lost several top staffers after Johnson took over, and member businesses split over such issues as the state’s response to climate change.

To recover lost ground, OBI tapped long-time Oregon operative Ginny Lang to serve as interim CEO while the organization searches for a permanent leader.

In an Oregonian newspaper interview, Lang, a retired telecommunications executive, said “Oregon’s largest business group needs to move quickly if it’s to recover from a difficult merger and the sudden firing of the first CEO.”

Good point.

“Everything they’re doing (the new Board) is new because they’ve created a different organization and a different way of doing things and they’re going to have to build a culture around it.”

Divisions remain, Lang concedes, between rural and urban businesses, and between liberal executives and conservative industrialists, a reality that is neither bad nor surprising.

“The idea that this the business community in Oregon that thinks and speaks and acts in the same way just makes me chuckle a little bit,” Lang said.

Part of the process of forming a new organization, she added, involves sorting through differences to find common ground and policies a broad group of members can support around education funding, taxes and the environment.

“It’s important for businesses to figure out ways to talk among themselves and disagree among themselves, then put forward options that everyone is willing to live with.”

With sage comments such as those, it will not be surprising if Lang succeeds in her interim role. Her long experience in negotiating the shoals of public policy in Oregon provides a solid foundation.

To be sure, Lang faces major internal issues. The business association needs a long-term CEO, a chief operating officer, a political director, a membership director and perhaps a communications chief.

Lang also says she will continue the push to make OBI a full partner with the Oregon Business Council and the Portland Business Alliance in developing the business community’s annual policy playbook, the Oregon Business Plan, which lays out a consensus vision on a variety of issues, from education and tax policy to pension reform and the environment.

OBI’s unique role in that partnership, she said, will be converting policy ideas into pieces of legislation and helping push them through the 2019 process, “so it’s not just an academic exercise.”

Kudos to Lang for her first days on the job.

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.

I found time to watch a bit of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance before Congressional committees last week.

Without getting into the detail of how to regulate social media companies such as Facebook – a hugely complicated issue, one for which I am not suited — a fact struck me as I watched Zuckerberg in the hot seat for two days.

It was this: Many Members of Congress asked very long questions, seemingly to get themselves on TV, then gave Zuckerberg only scant time to answer. In fact, as he started to answer, he was often interrupted by a member who obviously wanted more air time and didn’t want Zuckerberg to provide any answer with context.

It struck me as a farce, perhaps indicative of how Congressional committees often work, but still a farce.

The polite approach would have been to ask Zuckerberg a question, even a hard one, then give him time to respond.

As I reflected on Zuckerberg’s plight last week, I also looked back on my more than 25 years as a lobbyist in Oregon. I often testified before legislative committees and, while there was sometimes a tendency for legislators to interrupt, I was able to ask the chair to give me time to respond. Almost invariably, the chair said yes.

Did I have something important to say? Perhaps. But the approach was to give me time to answer and that was – and is – a far better fate than what Zuckerberg had to contend with last week.

This was Zuckerberg’s maiden voyage through the shoals of Congressional testimony. Here’s hoping that the next time – if there is a next time – he will be treated fairly. That’s the least we should expect with what is stake – finding the proper balance between free speech and privacy.

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.

If confession is even appropriate in this case, let me confess this:  I like Paul Ryan.

• I liked him when he was “just” a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
• I liked him when he was asked to run for vice president on a Republican ticket with Mitt Romney.
• I liked him when, under pressure after the resignation of John Boehner, he agreed to take over as Speaker of the House.
• I liked how he tried the run the gauntlet of being Speaker in a House where many members didn’t want to be led anywhere.
• I like him now as he heads toward retirement at the young age of 48, saying he will never run for public office again.

I don’t blame him.

Who would want to try to herd cats as Speaker of the House, then contend with Donald Trump as president?

Not me.

Ryan is a person of ideas and it appears that he could not continue serving in the powder-keg of Congress where policy goals often get short shrift and almost always lead to contention, not resolution

Here’s the way the Wall Street Journal put it in its lead editorial:

“Paul Ryan’s decision not to run for re-election for Congress is a blow to Republicans, and his departure at age 48 will leave a particular void in the GOP’s growth and reform wing. But the lesson of his 20 years in Congress is that the Members who matter are those who change the public debate about policies of consequence.

“Mr. Ryan deserves credit for taking the job of Speaker that no one else wanted after John Boehner resigned in 2015. He knew the legislative grinder was likely to end his chances of becoming President, but he did it anyway. His policy chops and listening skills helped rally the fractious GOP House into a governing majority rather than merely an opposition to Barack Obama. They developed the “Better Way” reform platform in 2016, and in this Congress they’ve passed most of it through the House and much into law.

“The talk-show right won’t admit this (Ryan’s accomplishments) because Mr. Ryan understands the occasional need to compromise and hasn’t embraced extreme anti-immigration positions. They have railed against Mr. Ryan as a totem of ‘the establishment,’ which was always more epithet than argument. Mr. Ryan knows that the point of politics is to win power to pass your agenda, not remain in feckless opposition to the supposedly un-reformable entitlement state.”

Or, this from Wall Street Journal columnist Karl Rove:

“Mr. Ryan will leave Congress with the respect of virtually every member of his caucus, to say nothing of Democrats who can’t help but like him despite their policy differences. No one else could have matched his performance at keeping House Republicans moving in a constructive direction over the last three years. That he did so while also deftly managing relations with this White House—not known for its maturity or predictability—is all the more impressive.

“Mr. Ryan’s departure from the House will be a loss for the country, too. Like his mentor, Jack Kemp, Mr. Ryan is optimistic, generous in spirit, committed to outreach, and animated by ideas. He is willing to work across party lines, as in the 2013 budget deal. And throughout his public life, he has shown integrity, civility and decency—qualities much too rare in today’s coarse and ugly political culture.”

Another columnist I read said “the departing speaker’s central insight is that serious governments have to choose. His years long effort to reform America’s entitlements was really an attempt to guide a new debate about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of government spending. The shame of the Ryan years—and it’s our shame as voters, not his—is that too few Republicans, let alone citizens at large, were prepared to engage that discussion seriously.

“The dangerous alternative into which those on the right too often fall is to obsess solely over the fiscal ‘how much.’ The mark of a party that’s truly ready to lead will not be the passage of a gimmicky and futile balanced-budget requirement. It will be a political commitment to the entitlement reforms without which a balanced budget will never be possible.

“The deeper failure is one of basic governance. Choosing austerity means refusing to choose in any meaningful way.”

This is one of the reasons Ryan’s legacy is positive in my mind. He knew that developing a government budget is more than just adding and subtracting numbers. It is making conscious policy decisions. For Ryan, it was making real decisions on entitlements so government dollars could be allocated in specific, intentional ways – including to entitlements, as well as to priorities such as public safety.

One of my friends yesterday said Ryan deserves criticism for not standing up more strongly to Trump. Well, no matter what Ryan did or did not do, it wouldn’t matter to the mad-hatter who sits in the Oval Office.

What Congress needs is more smart minds like Ryan’s who will propose policies and challenge the conventional wisdom today that government cannot operate effectively.

So, kudos to him as he leaves government and moves on with his life.

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.

If you read one of my recent blogs, I reflected on memories of the 2015 Masters’ tournament in Augusta, Georgia, when I had the privilege – perhaps a once-in-lifetime privilege – to attend the tournament with my daughter and her husband.

We had two days at the tournament which is my favorite all year.

Well, this year, without tickets, my wife and I traveled to my daughter’s home in Woodinville, Washington, where, with my daughter and family, we watched almost all the tournament on TV.

What’s more, my daughter brought out her Masters’ tournament chairs and set them up in the living room where we could both see them and sit in them. Just like being at Augusta National – or almost.

So, another great Masters’ memory!

We have purposed to spend every Masters’ with my daughter and family, even as she continues to participate in the lottery for Masters’ tickets, hoping to be able to attend again.

Perhaps we’ll get that chance, but even if we don’t, Masters’ memories will live on.

Plus, one piece good news about being at home and not at Augusta National: There is no need to have a pimento sandwich!