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.

One of my favorite sayings as I worked in and around government for more than 40 years was this:

Government should be involved in a process that produces a product.

Those in government should realize that process is not an end in itself. It should produce a product.  Note the twin aims — process and product.

Too often, that is not the case and government gets bogged down in process and goes no farther, at least in part because many in government know that they will survive the lack of producing much of anything.

For the many, the issue is not about what results can be produced; the issue is about bureaucratic survival.

But, this blog is about something else.

It relates to a column by Marc Fisher in the Washington Post, which contained these paragraphs:

“Trump is very different from other presidents in that he has no regard for process,” said Bruce Miroff, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Albany who studies presidential leadership. ‘So it’s unlikely that anything will reach him through the usual Washington process. He likes to make decisions by instinct, and that allows prominent celebrities to solicit him for their causes. He gets to play the regal role, issuing decisions from above them.’”

“As Trump entered the White House,” Fisher continues, “experts suggested that he’d have to shift gears from creating spectacles to the non-glamorous work of governing. But Trump thought that the same tactics that got him elected would serve him well in office.

“In New York, Trump had realized that his celebrity protected him from consequences for his affairs and corporate bankruptcies. Similarly, in the White House, he understands that the same excesses that made him steady tabloid fodder for decades exempt him from the standards usually applied to politicians. He is, instead, judged as sports and entertainment celebrities often are, permitted a range of behavior that would bring down a politician.”

Sounds like Trump, right?

He flies by the seat of his pants, without regard to normal government processes. In the case of, say, pardons, the products he produces are more related to meeting with Kim Kardashian than they are to displaying the normal acuity about deciding whether to issue a pardon.

Or, consider this from Dan Balz, one of the most experienced political observers in Washington, D.C. as he writes for the Washington Post:

“Not since the rollout of his original travel ban in the opening days of Trump’s presidency has a policy — two policies actually — been put in place with such haste and lack of planning. Put aside the contradictory and conflicting descriptions by administration officials (it was a deterrent; no, it was not a deterrent; it was policy; no, it was not policy). The decision to enforce ‘zero tolerance’ and then suddenly undo it provided a textbook example of how not to govern.

“The president has remained defiant and in denial throughout. He defended the policy without defending it, insisting that it was the fault of others, namely Democrats. He insisted that changing the policy was out of his hands, that it required legislation. Either he didn’t understand what his administration had done or chose to make his arguments in the face of contrary facts.

“He insisted and insisted that he was locked into the policy of zero tolerance that resulted in separating children, until even for him, the pressure became too much. Then he suddenly backed down — a rarity for an individual whose style and personality has long been to double down in the face of criticism, to fight harder and never admit error or mistakes.”

So, process that produces a product? With Trump, no. He ignores process and then often produces a policy based on defiance and ego, sometimes with celebrities in mind, which he, himself, believes he still is – a celebrity.

As Americans, we deserve better.