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.

In some ways, I hate to write about the coronavirus epidemic because, for one thing, so much has – and is – being written, enough to dwarf anyone’s ability to consume all of it.

For another, I am not sure I, not a scientist or a medical professional, have much to add of consequence to the current situation.

Still, there is one development recently that is worthy of comment, if only because it is so far-fetched as to be grossly irritating.

And, yes, it involves Donald Trump.  To be sure, bureaucrats in several federal agencies have made mistakes in working to combat coronavirus, but they pale in comparison to Trump’s unconscionable, selfish focus on himself.

The other day a Washington Post headline said this:

“’Maybe I have a natural ability’: Trump plays medical expert on coronavirus by second-guessing the professionals.”

That’s Trump.  Contending that he and only he has all the information.  True to his narcissism.

In “The Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights,” Post reporter David Nakamura wrote this:

“President Trump likes to say that he fell into politics almost by accident, and on Friday, as he sought to calm a nation gripped with fears over coronavirus, he suggested he would have thrived in another profession — medical expert.

“I like this stuff. I really get it.  Citing a ‘great, super-genius uncle’ who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.

“People are really surprised I understand this stuff.  Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”

But, Nakamura added,  for members of the general public alarmed by more than 300 diagnosed cases in the United States — including at least 21 that his administration announced Friday were discovered on a cruise ship off the San Francisco coast — Trump’s performance during an impromptu 45-minute news conference at CDC was not necessarily reassuring.

Sporting his trademark red 2020 campaign hat with the slogan “Keep America Great,” the president repeatedly second-guessed and waved off the actual medical professionals standing next to him.  He attacked his Democratic rivals — including calling Washington Governor Jay Inslee a “snake” for criticizing his response — and chided a CNN reporter for smiling and called her network “fake news.”

And, he described coronavirus testing kits — which his administration has been criticized for being slow to distribute — as “beautiful” and said they were as “perfect” as his Ukraine phone call last summer that led him to be impeached.

“The upshot,” Nakamura wrote, “was that the self-proclaimed medical savant came off looking less interested in his administration’s unsteady efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus than he was in bolstering his own status in a campaign year.  Trump repeatedly sought to judge his administration’s performance by the numbers of how many have been shown to have contracted the virus and comparing it to other nations — and, in doing so, appeared to be making judgments based solely on that scorecard.”

Trump’s approach:

• Ridicule all the scientists who work for federal government, the ones who understand such epidemic as coronavirus and what could be done about it.
• Advance his own cause, no matter the subject, as the one who knows all.
• Treat the epidemic as just another political rally on the way to what he hopes will be his re-election.

So, Dr. Trump?  No.

Again and as usual, he has no idea about what he is talking about or doing.

Trump’s toddler traits – short attention span, quick temper, and focus on only himself — have exacerbated the mismanagement of the current situation, a pandemic in the making.