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.

It has to be one of the worst times in history to hold the title of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

That’s because, the current holder of the office, Representative Paul Ryan, has two impossible jobs.

One is herding cats – the 435 members of the House. Tough, if not impossible.

The second is contending with one of the worst presidents in U.S. history – Donald Trump, who just happens to be in the same party as Ryan, if, in fact, it would be possible to contend that Trump belongs truthfully to any party.

Many observers believe Ryan has not been tough enough in opposing Trump and I could find myself agreeing with them, at least part of the time.

Ryan came into the Speaker’s job with high policy-making chops, especially with regard to the federal budget. Then, once in the top job, he had to give up any hope of crafting policy. Perhaps because he knew that going in, he didn’t really want the job.

Last week, Ryan gave his last annual lecture to congressional interns.

His main message was this:  “Don’t be snarky or attack others on Twitter. Just think about what you’re doing to poison the well of society and degrade the tone of our debate.”

With that remark, Ryan finished the session and headed for a White House meeting with a world leader who spent Wednesday morning belittling “weak lawmakers” who do not support his trade war policy, accusing Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee of being “crime loving,” and blasting his onetime lawyer as “sad!” for leaking a recording of the two discussing payments to cover up an alleged affair.

This is the contradiction Ryan faces in his final months in office. For the second time in a week, he held a forum on the favorite topic of his 20-year career, restoring the foundations of “civic life” and reclaiming his “raise your gaze” rhetoric of his first days as House speaker in 2015.

Then, he had to contend again with Trump down the street.

To be sure, Ryan has struggled with squaring his own ethos of “common humanity” with having to deal with Trump who believes that a brutish nature is a way to achieve victory.

To the interns, Ryan issued a stark warning about the nature of today’s political discourse, which he said is “filled with disillusionment and lacking substance … reason … facts … merits.”   Those engaged in many political debates, he added, “rarely skim below the surface and feed off a social media network with a narrow vision of society.”

“Snark sells, but it doesn’t stick,” he concluded.

Kudos to Ryan as he leaves office.