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 the life of me – a veteran political junkie – I cannot figure out “our” president, one Donald Trump.

He conducts himself with discord and disagreement every day of his life. And the disagreement often is with himself.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank made that point recently.

“Only a man who is, like, really smart could perform mental gymnastics at the level President Trump has attained over the past few days.

“On Saturday, Trump declared that the New York Times committed a ‘virtual act of treason’ by reporting on a U.S. cyber campaign against Russia.

“Mere seconds later, he proclaimed that the supposedly treasonous report was ‘ALSO, NOT TRUE!’”

While I don’t make as much money as Milbank skewering Trump – in fact, it is zero for me – I think Milbank has a very good point.

The way I put it is that Trump usually believes his own lies. He utters one lie one minute, then utters an opposite lie the next. To him, both are true.

All of this came together for me as Trump kicked-off his campaign for re-election in Orlando, Florida, a nod to the fact that his campaign strategists believe he has to win Florida to be re-elected.

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker column showed up with a story reporting that “the fact-checkable claims were different this time around, but history repeated itself nonetheless. Trump’s campaign speech kick-off speech in Orlando was littered with the same false or misleading claims he has so often repeated as president.

“Phony numbers on trade. Unfounded claims about immigrants. False statements about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. Fishy economic statistics and wild exaggerations about his presidential accomplishments.”

Further, on the day of Trump’s visit, the hometown paper, the Orlando Sentinel, published an editorial announcing that it would not endorse him for reelection.

“After 2½ years we’ve seen enough,” the paper said. “Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies. So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.”

Now, I add that the Fact Checker column and the Orlando Sentinel’s announcement will no doubt infuriate Trumpians. They believe “their guy” is fighting against the liberals on the other side and, no matter what he says, he is right and they will support him.

In fact, the Trumpians thrive on the fact that he doesn’t go along with the usual conventions and norms of being president. He not only counters those norms, he runs them into the ground.

Now, I admit that the term “conventions and norms” sounds like old school. Better, Trumpians would say, to have a president who flouts the conventions and norms because he wants to get stuff done – stuff Trump supporters want done.

Below are a few examples of Trump’s duplicity based, Milbank writes, on what F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

Trump’s ability to function is a matter of much dispute, but if the ability to hold opposing thoughts in mind is a measure of intelligence, Trump is a very stable genius indeed. Nobody contradicts himself as forcefully, fluently and frequently as Trump does.

Witness a list from Milbank:

• Last December, Trump declared that “we have defeated ISIS.” The very next day he said Russia, Iran and others “will have to fight ISIS” without us.
• In recent weeks, Trump has said Robert Mueller conducted his probe in an honorable way and his findings offered full vindication and exoneration. During roughly the same period, Trump also promoted   the contrary idea that Mueller’s report is “total bullshit,” not to mention “fabricated” and “pure political garbage”
• Last month, Trump pronounced China’s Huawei “very dangerous” as a military and security threat; in the next sentence, he said this dangerous threat should be included in a trade deal.
• Trump earlier this year declared an emergency on the border because of a migration “crisis”; the same day, he said, “I didn’t need to do this” — and, two months earlier, he had boasted that the “border is tight.”
• Early on in his term, Trump proclaimed, in all caps, “MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL.” Exactly 11 minutes later, he complained that the border wall was in jeopardy because Democrats provided “NOTHING” to pay for it.’
• In December, Trump said he would be “proud” to accept responsibility for shutting the federal government to pay for the border wall; soon thereafter, he announced that, “The Democrats now own the shutdown.”
• In January 2018, he told a bi-partisan group of lawmakers he would sign any immigration deal they sent him. The next day, he said he would not sign such a bill without funding for his wall.
• In February 2018, Trump proposed comprehensive legislation with gun-safety measures, saying “it would be nice if we could add everything onto it.” Twenty minutes later, he said he supported a piecemeal approach.
• In June 2018, he tweeted an all-caps call: “HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS THE STRONG BUT FAIR IMMIGRATION BILL.” Three days later, he tweeted: “I never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill.”

I could go on. There is more here than anyone would ever have thought possible. Which underlines one more unfortunate fact about Trump – he is so duplicitous that it is impossible to count the ways he skewers facts and makes up information to achieve his ends.