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 spent a portion of one morning this week watching U.S. Attorney General William Barr appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Why do I feel a sense of, well, duty, to write again about Barr? Isn’t there already enough to-ing and fro-ing about him and his conduct? Probably. But I like to add my notions to the mix if only because I do not have much else to do in retirement.

To summarize, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were out to trap Barr. Republicans tended to treat him with at least a bit of respect.

But, for me, this was the bottom line: Barr is a consummate Executive Branch official. He is smart. He is savvy. He is schooled in the law.

But does he believe too much in “executive authority” as contended today in a column by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post?

I don’t think so.

The fact is that Barr does not work for Congress. He relates to Congress.

And that is a key distinction, one not accepted by most Democrats who want Barr to follow their orders.

Do I say this in some misguided notion to protect President Donald Trump?

I answer with a resounding NO.

However it happens – through impeachment, then conviction, or through the ballot box in 2020 – I want Trump out of the White House. He has no respect for the office and tries to lie his way out of any situation, a further indication that, for Trump, being president is more about an infomercial for his brand, whatever that is, than respect for the Oval Office.

Meanwhile, I hold Barr in high regard.

So does the Wall Street Journal. No surprise there. And, also, no surprise that the Washington Post disputes that notion, suggesting that Barr destroyed his reputation this week.

Gary Conkling, a partner in the firm I retired from, CFM Strategic Communications, does not agree with me. I have not asked if I could cite his reasoning, but, because his blog on this subject is on the record, I have no problem with including his language, as long as there is attribution – so I attribute this.

Conkling writes:

“The sharp backlash to the press conference held by Attorney General William Barr prior to the public release of the Mueller report is evidence of the serious peril of spinning a story.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the findings of the special counsel’s investigation in Russian election meddling and potential collusion by the Trump campaign, it is hard to disagree that Barr’s summary of the report didn’t square with language in the report. That dissonance led to instantaneous criticism that Barr tried to spin the report’s findings in a positive light before anyone had a chance to read it.

“The result was a day-long drip of media reports and blogs detailing the gap between Barr’s summary and Robert Mueller’s findings. Critics said Barr acted more like Donald Trump’s defense attorney than the US attorney general. House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler issued a subpoena to obtain the full, un-redacted Mueller report. Calls for Trump’s impeachment grew louder.”

Conkling is wrong.

All Barr did was write a quick description of what he saw in the Mueller report. He tried to check it in advance with Mueller declined to review it perhaps so he could criticize it afterwards.

Barr took this approach, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, release of the full report could take weeks, given the need to redact portions of it for four reasons – to protect grand jury reports (under the law), to protect intelligence sources, to protect the vigor on ongoing prosecutions, and to protect the reputation what he called “un-charged third parties.”

The fact is that Barr did his job. Did he, as Conkling suggests, engage in “spin.”

Yes, everyone in public life does, if the definition of spin is saying something which is better than saying nothing or trying to say everything.

A certain kind of spin is detestable – providing only certain facts that support your cause and putting those who disagree with you on the defensive. Look only so far as Congress to find the best (read, worst) spinners.

Don’t look at Barr.

What you see when you see or hear him is a consummate public official who has a clear understanding of the public interest.

Barr, as a public official, is not subject to regular slander laws. But, if he was, he ought to sue Senator Mazie Hirona, D-Hawaii. At the Judiciary Committee hearing, she treated Barr with contempt, calling him a liar and scoundrel without giving him any chance to respond.

Smartly, when Hirona was done with her harangue, Barr held his tongue. There was no need to say anything, given how Hirona had impugned what was left of her own integrity, if there was anything left at all.

For me, all of this involving Barr and the Mueller report is an illustration of a tension all the time these days – the one between the Executive Branch on one hand and the Legislative Branch on the other.

Legislators, both in Washington, D.C. and, for me, in Salem, act as if they want to manage programs and, when they don’t get their way, they chastise executives, often in public.

Am I biased? Yes. I worked in the Executive Branch in Oregon for many years and always believed that we ran programs and related to the Legislature, not reported to legislators in some kind of management sense.

Barr is an excellent representative of the Executive Branch, one of the best appointments President Donald Trump has made – which is, I guess, not saying much because Trump has made a slew of bad appointments.

Now, two footnotes:

1. Imagine this. What if Matthew Whitaker, the former acting AG, was sitting on the witness stand this week. It would have been far different. He would not have known what to say or how to behave.
2. I may have made this point previously, but, in the hearing this week, Barr answered some questions with one word answers – often just “no” or “yes.” That must have frustrated some questioners who wanted him to go on at some length, to fall into traps. His conduct reminded me of the late Montana U.S. Senator Mike Mansfield who was famous for one-word answers – often “nope” or “yup.”