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.

Here’s why this posts contains the headline appearing above.

Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay wrote a piece this morning with a lead that said this: “This is not a column about the Mueller report.”

Instead, Gay wrote about Tiger Woods’ victory as the Masters Golf Tournament last week.

Well, by contrast, this post is about the Mueller report (thus the headline) – the one, in case you don’t know, prepared by special counsel Robert Mueller, which is due to be released in redacted form later this morning.

The reality is that no needs to hear from me – again on this issue, though:

• I wish Donald Trump was not president, given how he has trashed the office, lowering it below what anyone could have expected, so I am not advocating that any reading of the Mueller report should protect Trump.
• I hope Trump will be run out of office, or that someone would emerge in the 2020 campaign who would be able to appeal to the middle in America, which, I think, continues to exist, though it has been engulfed by the far left and far right.

My view of the Mueller report issue is that it tends to revolve around distinctions between the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch. If you were worked for the latter, you do not work for for Congress. You work were for the current federal administration and, of course, for the people in the country.

We had another example of this tension late yesterday when U.S. Representative Jerold Nadler went nuts because Attorney General William Barr had the temerity to hold a press conference, then release the Mueller report to Congress.

Here’s what Nadler told the Wall Street Journal:

“Even before the report’s release, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (Democrat from New York) expressed misgivings about Barr’s process for sharing the document with Congress and the public.

“’Why is the AG holding a press conference tomorrow morning to go over the Mueller report?’” Nadler asked on Twitter, saying that Barr already had stated that it wouldn’t be in the public’s interest for him to attempt to summarize the full report.

“Nadler said the Justice Department had informed his office that it wouldn’t receive the report until around 11 a.m. or 12 noon on Thursday—after Barr’s news conference. ‘This is wrong,’ Nadler tweeted.”

If I was talking to him, I’d suggest that Nadler just wait for the report. He’ll get it soon enough – later today, in fact. He can then read the report, rail against its redactions, and hold hearings on the process where he can ridicule Barr. Clearly, Nadler doesn’t like Barr, but I say, “so what.”

Barr is acting like a competent Executive Branch official who doesn’t report to Congress, but rather relates to Congress.

That’s exactly how he should conduct himself. I, for one, am glad Barr is in the top Department of Justice chair.