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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Why would I, fromm my winter base in the California desert, feel compelled to write about the first press conference held by President Joe Biden?

Well, perhaps not “compelled.”  But label me interested.  For one thing, I am a former journalist, so press conferences – how they are held, how the subjects conduct themselves and how reporters respond – all garner my interest.

In this case, for all the media hype prodding Biden to hold a press conference, his first since taking office, what happened was close to boring.

That is not a criticism of Biden.  In fact, it is a compliment.

As I watched live, I thought Biden carried himself with skill and distinction as, for more than an hour, he faced reporters, some of whom were intent on catching him in one of his periodic gaffes.

But, he did not commit any gaffes and, if he had done so, that would have made him look human, for, truth be told, all of us are subject to committing gaffes.

What Biden did was show that he grasped the detail of many of the policy issues that confront his presidency, the largest one of which is the pandemic, but that is followed close behind by immigration, gun control, infrastructure and climate change.

Biden started his press conference with a summary of what his Administration has done, is doing and will do to contain the virus.  Principally, he committed to achieving 200 million vaccinations by the 100^th day of his presidency, an increase from a previous goal.

Surprisingly, however, reporters, siting socially-distanced in a White House room, did not ask one question about the pandemic.  Not one.

In showing expertise on policy issues, Biden illustrated how different he is from his predecessor, Donald Trump. 

Trump rarely knew what he was talking about.  He did not read briefing books, preferring to watch television and emote on Twitter.  Plus, he mostly engaged in lies or diatribes against those he thought disagreed with him, including reporters at the White House.

Here is a summary of what commentators wrote about the long-awaited Biden press conference:

From David A. Graham in Atlantic Magazine wrote a piece under this headline:  WHAT BIDEN’S FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE REVEALED:  THE PRESIDENT INVOKED AN UNEXPECTED SOURCE OF INSPIRATION.

Graham went on:

“Joe Biden has a reputation as a softie—grandfatherly if you’re inclined toward him, somewhat windy and elderly if you aren’t.  But when he reached for a phrase to define his approach to office during his first press conference, he didn’t pick an Irish poet or an American statesman.  Instead, he quoted the hardheaded Teutonic conservative known as the Iron Chancellor:  “Politics is the art of the possible,” Biden said.

“The president invoked Otto von Bismarck in response to a question on filibuster reform.  Biden went further than he has in the past, coming close to an out-and-out condemnation of the 60-vote requirement, even as he said he’d be open to tweaks such as a ‘talking filibuster’ or a civil-rights exemption, rather than an outright abolition of the process.

“On the left, critics worried that Biden was a bi-partisanship fetishist, more interested in paying homage to the old ways of doing things (or not doing them, as the case might be) than actually achieving progressive goals.  On the right, critics painted him as a puppet of the ‘woke’ wing of the DemocratParty, putting a friendly face on a radical agenda.  Obviously, both of these views couldn’t be right. But so far, neither one has proved correct.’’

From Karen Tumulty in the Washington Post:  “In the tradition of most modern chief executives, Joe Biden arrived at his first formal presidential news conference with a nugget to announce:  He was doubling his initial goal and would assure that 200 million coronavirus vaccine shots would be administered to the American public in his first 100 days in office.

“So it was perhaps odd that the president got no questions from reporters about the pandemic that in the past year has killed nearly 550,000 Americans, devastated the economy and upended just about every aspect of daily life in this country.

“But it was also, in a way, a compliment to the Biden Administration’s management of the epidemic that is the White House’s most urgent priority, an acknowledgment that at last it has begun to feel that the situation is coming under control.”

From Jennifer Rubin, also in the Washington Post whose column appeared under this headline:  BIDEN EXCELS AT HIS FIRST NEWS CONFERENCE. THE MEDIA EMBARRASS THEMSELVES.

Rubin went on:

“Try as they might to seem ‘tough,’ the media did not succeed in knocking Biden off message.  Biden spoke in great detail and length to show not only his mastery of the issues, but also to suck tension and conflict out of the room.

“He simply would not be lured into accepting a false premise devised by Republicans (i.e., that his nice demeanor prompts parents to send kids thousands of miles under deadly conditions).

“’I’m going to send him on a thousand-mile journey across a desert and up to the United States because I know Joe Biden is a nice guy and he’ll take care of him? What a desperate act to take,’ he said. “The circumstances must be horrible.”

With all this, however, it was Dan Balz in the Washington Post who put it best.  If Biden’s first press conference was so important, he said, then the result didn’t prove the point. 

Given the media’s lackluster performance, Balz said the president might want to decide that there are better ways to communicate with the public than to hold press conferences.