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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.

The Department of Bits and Pieces is open again. It one of three I run, with enough time in retirement to do so.

ATLANTIC MAGAZINE STORY ON AMAZON CEO: Jeff Bezos, the CEO of super-power corporate titan Amazon, is the subject of a major story in the magazine.

By major, I mean two things – long and, at times, tedious.

Amidst all of the comments on Bezos, this one caught my attention:

“Amazon has a raft of procedures to guide its disparate teams. Bezos insists that plans be pitched in six-page memos, written in full sentences, a form he describes as “narrative.” This practice emerged from a sense that PowerPoint had become a tool for disguising fuzzy thinking. Writing, Bezos surmised, demands a more linear type of reasoning. As John Rossman, an alumnus of the company who wrote a book called Think Like Amazon, described it, “If you can’t write it out, then you’re not ready to defend it.” The six-pagers are consumed at the beginning of meetings in what Bezos has called a “study hall” atmosphere. This ensures that the audience isn’t faking its way through the meeting either. Only after the silent digestion of the memo—which can be an anxiety-inducing stretch for its authors—can the group ask questions about the document.”

COMMENT: I like the intention – getting someone to write summaries as a way to spur critical thinking.

Without comparing myself to Bezos, writing as a way to think clearly is a long-held bias of mine.  When I was interviewing candidates for state government positions or positions in the public relations and lobby firm I started with two partners, I always asked the candidates to write something as a way to see how they thought and how they performed under pressure.

COLUMNIST THIESSEN ON TRUMP MISTAKE IN SYRIA: The columnist, Mark Thiessen, who sometimes defends Trump, even in the pages of the Washington Post, goes after Trump’s Syria stupidity this morning.

Here are excerpts of what Thiessen wrote:

“President Trump has defended his shameful abandonment of our Kurdish allies in Syria, declaring that “I was elected on getting out of these ridiculous endless wars” that have left America “bogged down, watching over a quagmire.” Listening to the president, Americans might think that we still have large numbers of U.S. troops fighting on fronts across the Middle East. We do not.

“The days when we deployed hundreds of thousands of troops in the Middle East are long gone. Today, we have 14,000 troops in Afghanistan, about 5,000 in Iraq and just 1,000 in Syria. That is a grand total of about 20,000 troops in all three countries. By contrast, we have about 37,950 U.S. troops in Germany, 12,750 in Italy, 53,900 in Japan, and 28,500 in South Korea — a total or over 133,000. In fact, we now have three times more troops deployed in Spain (3,200) than we do in Syria.

“The cry that America is fighting “endless wars” is a canard. Our force levels in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are a shadow of their former selves, and U.S. forces are not doing the fighting but rather arming and training allies who are doing the fighting for us. That is the right strategy. But after watching Trump abandon our allies in Syria to be slaughtered, why would anyone step forward to help America in the fight against Islamist radicalism? The president can’t have it both ways. If you don’t want American forces fighting ‘endless wars,’ then you can’t betray your allies.”

COMMENT: Flying by the seat of your pants, especially in cases of national security, is a prescription for failure. But that’s what Trump does all the time, preferring to go his own, shameful way rather than reading anything about history or listening to experienced national security advisers.

AND MORE ABOUT THE SYRIA MISTAKE: Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan does her usual masterful job of skewering Trump when she writes:

“The Syria decision contributes to the hardened impression that in foreign policy he’s all impulse, blithely operating out of his depth. It adds to the hardening suspicion that in negotiations he’s not actually tough; he’ll say yes to a lot of things, and some very bad things, to get the deal, the photo-op, the triumphant handshake.

“Foreign-policy decisions in this administration look like the ball in a pinball machine in some garish arcade with flashing lights and some frantic guy pushing the levers ping ping ping and thinking he’s winning.”

COMMENT: Trump, again, is all about his own perception, not any kind of reality. That is a prescription for failure – and Trump is guilty, which ought to resonate in the coming presidential election.