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 have not opened this department, which I direct, for several weeks. One reason is that I have spent a lot of time on the golf course during a spate of hot weather in Oregon, which means, for golf, that the ball travels farther.

Because the department has been closed for several weeks, there is a lot to report – written comments from columnists I trust who write well. I add my own comments in each case.

So, here goes – the department is open again.

From Dan Henninger in the Wall Street Journal: “A message to Republicans lost in the Trump fun house: Run on something solid. Run on something you understand. Join yourself at the hip with the greatest accomplishment of Donald Trump’s presidency. Run on America’s booming economy. (Footnote: For put-off GOP voters who need more reason to show up, the next 30 years of the Gorsuch-Kavanaugh court was why they signed on for this ride in 2016.)”

Comment: As usual, Henninger is very perceptive, though it strikes me that it should be obvious that real Republicans have a great message on which to run in the coming election cycle – the economy is humming along.

From Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post:  “Uncle Rudy used to be New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani long before becoming President Trump’s lawyer. What a difference 17 years makes. The commanding leader who helped America navigate the horror of 9/11 is again making the TV rounds, but this time he seems to be speaking English as a second language. Quite a few cable anchors were at risk of reversing their Botox injections as they attempted to follow what he was saying.”

Comment: Giuliani is nuts, almost as nuts as Trump. He can’t get his words straight as he is interviewed, so often calls back reporters to change or clarify his remarks. He says “collusion” is not a crime, but, of course, no matter the words, what Trump allegedly has done is at least a potential crime.

From George Will in the Washington Post:  “A more apt connection of current events to actual socialism was made by Senator Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican, when President Trump decided to validate the conservative axiom that government often is the disease for which it pretends to be the cure. When the president decided to give farmers a $12 million bandage for the wound he inflicted on them with his splendid little (so far) trade war, and when other injured interests joined the clamor for comparable compensations, Johnson said, ‘This is becoming more and more like a Soviet type of economy here: Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers, commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits.’”

Comment: More stupid government. First, under Trump, it conducts trade war that adversely affects farmers. Then, he proposes to give them government money to offset the harm he has created. Round and round it goes.

From David Von Drehle in the Washington Post:  “Trump is the first president to make full use of digital media to go around established intermediaries such as the Washington press corps and the political parties. The smartphone in his hand allows him to broadcast his own messages unfiltered by interpreters, on his own schedule and in his own words.  Presidents have dreamed of this power for ages, but Trump was the one who realized that the same digital principles Amazon used to disrupt retail and Airbnb leveraged to upend the hotel business could be applied to political communication, given enough name recognition to get the ball rolling.”

Comment: For Trump, it’s either this tendency to go around the media to “his people,” or criticize the media as being only interested in what he calls “fake news…”which usually just means he disagrees with what’s being reported.

From former NBC journalist Ann Curry on a panel for Season 5 of “Finding Your Roots,” the PBS series in which prominent people learn facts about their ancestry:   “Curry learned news about her biological grandfather, which prompted the host to say: “We are a nation of immigrants.”

Comment: Well said! Trump can gain political advantage all day long for all I care as he rails against immigrants. But, we are a nation of immigrants. That fact should be kept squarely in mind.

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.

It has to be one of the worst times in history to hold the title of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

That’s because, the current holder of the office, Representative Paul Ryan, has two impossible jobs.

One is herding cats – the 435 members of the House. Tough, if not impossible.

The second is contending with one of the worst presidents in U.S. history – Donald Trump, who just happens to be in the same party as Ryan, if, in fact, it would be possible to contend that Trump belongs truthfully to any party.

Many observers believe Ryan has not been tough enough in opposing Trump and I could find myself agreeing with them, at least part of the time.

Ryan came into the Speaker’s job with high policy-making chops, especially with regard to the federal budget. Then, once in the top job, he had to give up any hope of crafting policy. Perhaps because he knew that going in, he didn’t really want the job.

Last week, Ryan gave his last annual lecture to congressional interns.

His main message was this:  “Don’t be snarky or attack others on Twitter. Just think about what you’re doing to poison the well of society and degrade the tone of our debate.”

With that remark, Ryan finished the session and headed for a White House meeting with a world leader who spent Wednesday morning belittling “weak lawmakers” who do not support his trade war policy, accusing Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee of being “crime loving,” and blasting his onetime lawyer as “sad!” for leaking a recording of the two discussing payments to cover up an alleged affair.

This is the contradiction Ryan faces in his final months in office. For the second time in a week, he held a forum on the favorite topic of his 20-year career, restoring the foundations of “civic life” and reclaiming his “raise your gaze” rhetoric of his first days as House speaker in 2015.

Then, he had to contend again with Trump down the street.

To be sure, Ryan has struggled with squaring his own ethos of “common humanity” with having to deal with Trump who believes that a brutish nature is a way to achieve victory.

To the interns, Ryan issued a stark warning about the nature of today’s political discourse, which he said is “filled with disillusionment and lacking substance … reason … facts … merits.”   Those engaged in many political debates, he added, “rarely skim below the surface and feed off a social media network with a narrow vision of society.”

“Snark sells, but it doesn’t stick,” he concluded.

Kudos to Ryan as he leaves office.

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.

To use an understatement, I like words. More than photos. More than charts or graphs. More than tables of numbers.

To say I like words does not necessarily mean that I use them accurately in all cases. I just like them.

So, it was that I was interested in a two examples of commentaries on words this week.

One was in a column by Erik Wemple, the Washington Post’s media critic appearing under the headline, “Spicer is still trying to gaslight American about Trump.”

The column referred to the fact that former press secretary for Donald Trump, Sean Spicer, had written a new book, Briefing, which includes this incredible paragraph:

“In Spicer’s telling, Trump has a ‘deep vein of compassion and sympathy.’ He is a ‘man of Christian instincts and feeling.’ He is a man who showed his humanity in a phone call after Spicer’s father passed away. ‘The sincere compassion and empathy in his voice was something I will never forget,’ the former press secretary writes. ‘I wish more people saw that side of him.’”

That is a tall tale, but back to a new word for me, gaslight, which, in this case, is used as a verb in the headline.

According to the dictionary, the meaning is:

“To cause (a person) to doubt his or her sanity through the use of psychological manipulation.”

I have never used that word, but may choose to do so in the future.

The second example of a word is drawn from Ben Zimmer who writes a weekly column, “Word on the Street” for the Wall Street Journal. This time, he asked this question:

“Is there anything that can’t be weaponized” these days.

Then, he went on to provide examples of the use of the word ranging from politics to tennis.

He said the suffix “ize” has been attached to the noun “weapon” for more than 80 years. That makes the word a verb.

And, that is precisely what bugs me – adding “ize” to words all over the place.

For example, better, I say, to write “establish priorities” than to use the word “prioritize.”

If I worry about stuff like this – the use of the words “gaslight” and “weaponize” — you may say that I have too much time on my hands.

I’d say you are right, but be careful — I might gaslight or weaponize you!

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.

Those of us who have been involved in politics for many years tend to remember “the good old days” when representatives of both parties could get together and do the public’s business.

Rarely does doing the public’s business happen today, at least not with equanimity and agreement. Rather, one side shoves results down the other’s throats.

Impatient with the three branches of government established at the nation’s founding, the left routinely takes its politics to the streets now to demand remedies for “inequality” or “injustice.”

Yet, these demands have become so disconnected from the normal mechanisms of politics that no Congress, representing 535 elective areas, could possibly turn them into legislation.

Meanwhile, the right expresses disdain for the left and tries, at least in Congress where Republicans are in charge, to pass bills with no Democrat support, or feeble support at best. It’s all part of the “get-even” tactic to repay Democrats for what they did to Republicans during the Obama years.

The fact is that, for some on the left and the right, polarization has become a drug that produces a pleasurable political delirium.  It’s “I win, you lose.”

After Donald Trump’s election, what emerged, even among senior congressional Democrats, wasn’t just opposition, but “resistance,” a word normally associated with armed underground movements.

Before his election, Republicans acted the same toward President Barack Obama. The intent was resistance, not meeting somewhere in the middle.

Opinion polls began to note the intensity of political separation during George W. Bush’s presidency. It widened through the Obama years. Pew reported two years ago that 70 per cent of politically active Democrats and 62 per cent of Republicans say they’re “afraid” of the other party.

What can be done about this?

Well, at least at the federal level, I would say nothing until President Donald Trump leaves office because he thrives on discord and acrimony. Not only thrives. He welcomes it, promotes it, and then capitalizes on it.

Because, after all, he is always the smartest person in the room and one around whom everything else and everyone else revolves.

In fact, Max Boot, now a Washington Post writer and previously a staff member for President George W. Bush, put it this way in a recent column:

“Now I would take Obama back in a nanosecond. His presidency appears to be a lost golden age when reason and morality reigned. All of his faults, real as they were, fade into insignificance compared with the crippling defects of his successor. And his strengths — seriousness, dignity, intellect, probity, dedication to ideals larger than self — shine all the more clearly in retrospect.”

I am not sure I would go as far as Boot because Obama’s faults were huge. He tended to preach to his audience and moved much too far to the left rather than working toward the center.

Still, Boot is right. “His strengths – seriousness, dignity, intellect, probity, dedication to ideals larger than himself – shine all the more clearly in retrospect.”

Some would say, wait, look at the character of the nation’s economy, which has rebounded strongly during the Trump presidency. In fact, on Friday, it was reported that the economy grew 4.1 per cent in the second quarter, must stronger than during the Obama years. The U.S. economy has now averaged 3.1 per cent growth for the last six months and 2.8 per cent for the last 12.

Good news for many – including for my own 401K investments — but, in many ways, the good news may be more in spite of Trump than because of him.

As the preamble to this blog notes, I spent the last 25 years of my career as a lobbyist in Oregon. It was, most often, a state government controlled by Democrats and, to be sure, Democrats and Republicans didn’t always get along. Nor, I suppose, should they, given very different principles.

Still, they got important jobs done, such as:

• Building a balanced state government budget every two years. In fact, there was no choice because the State Constitution requires balance between spending and revenue. But, still, Democrats and Republicans on the Joint Ways and Means Committee managed to find a way to work together to produce the final, balanced result.
• Approving compromises on such issues as workers’ compensation programs when legislators found a way to prod management and labor to work together toward the common good.
• Approving state funding for the Columbia River Channel Deepening Project, which meant that the States of Oregon and Washington would work cooperatively with the federal government to prod economic development for the region as deeper draft ships plied their up and down the Columbia.
• And, even in such a divisive issue as “assisted suicide,” approving a compromise that helped advocates and opponents craft language recognizing moral conscience as a factor in the new process, at the time the first assisted suicide law in the country.

I could go on, but suffice it to say, the process at the Capitol in Salem may not always look pretty, but it does produce results. I wish the same could be said of the federal government where, at the moment, disdain and hate choke rational political discourse.

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.

A headline in the Washington Post the other day caught my attention for at least two reasons. The headline was this: MEDIA MALPRACTICE IS DESTROYING AMERICAN POLITICS

My two reasons:

1. I started my career as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Oregon. From that time forward, as well as in college before I started working, I always have been keenly interested in politics.
2. After the daily newspaper gig, I continued my career working for federal and state government in positions with political overtoneS, and then for 25 years as a state government lobbyist in Oregon.

My conclusion mirrors the headline: The way reporters and editors cover political issues in this country is destroying the very system of how our country is governed.   Put simply, the problem is a preoccupation with gaffes and scandals, which, I suppose, contribute to subscriptions and rating, but which do nothing for the common good.

Brian Rosenwald, a senior fellow at the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the co-editors of Made by History, agrees with me. Or, rather, better put, I agree with him. Here is a quick summary of what he wrote in a piece for the Washington Post.

“Many Republicans take it as an article of faith that Mitt Romney was badly mistreated by Democrats and the mainstream media during the 2012 presidential campaign.

“Republicans blamed mistreatment of Romney for ushering in the Trump tide, but Romney proved prescient about Russia, which he memorably called America’s ‘number one geopolitical foe.’”

Romney was treated no worse than many presidential candidates in both parties over the last half-century. “His experience,” Rosenwald writes, “is an indictment of a longstanding — and damaging — obsession by the media with gaffes and scandals that dominate American politics.”

Rosenwald contends that “changes in the media over the last half-century, along with an intense focus on every word candidates say and every mistake they make, has resulted in saturation coverage of peccadillos and blunders rather than policies. This may be a good business model for the media, and effective politically, but it has undermined attempts by both parties to overcome polarization and govern.”

As I reflect back on my own past, I think the Vietnam War began to change media posture.s As government officials maintained the war was going well, video from the battlefield made clear it was not. A credibility gap emerged and led to far more intense scrutiny of public officials, especially by reporters and editors who felt the country deserved honesty.

Further, the exposés of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate gave rise to a new era of investigative journalism. The press became more adversarial, looking to pounce on any perceived misdeed or character flaw as journalists sought to become the next Woodward and Bernstein and expose the next Watergate.

Rosenwald reflects that two other changes in the 1970s and early 1980s aggravated the intent to put candidates under a microscope. As conservatives pressed the media for fairer coverage, the press settled into a both-sides approach to fairness, demonstrating objectivity by including a voice from the left and a voice from the right in most stories. While this sounds fair, it allowed spin artists to push claims regardless of their veracity, knowing they would be included for balance.

Technological changes, Rosenwald adds, furthered this trend. The 1980 launch of CNN spawned a 24-7 news cycle, creating a programming need for saturation coverage of any gaffe or perceived scandal.

So, in all of this, government is at least partially to blame for a growing perception that democracy is in trouble.

But, for me, as both a former reporter and a retired lobbyist, the media shares in the blame.

When I worked for a daily newspaper, my writing colleagues and I tried, as do such media heavyweights as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post (both of which I read every day), to practice fact-based reporting.

If there was to be analysis, we would label it as such. And the reporting function would stay separate from the opinion function on the editorial pages. Plus, we always tried, no doubt imperfectly, to avoid just focusing on minor issues, gaffes and mistakes.   The question was more this – what would our readers want to see in our coverage of issues that matter in their daily lives.

Donald Trump, for me the worst of presidents, has only aggravated the dislocation. Many reporters and editors pay almost endless attention to his tweets. I say ignore most of them because they are written to incite and inflame – then, of course, Trump capitalizes on the reaction to change the subject and stay at the center of his own universe.

House Speaker Paul Ryan gave a speech to Congressional interns this week:

He was reported to have said, “We should restore the foundations of ‘civic life’ and reclaim a ‘raise your gaze’ outlook.”

He also issued a stark warning about the nature of today’s political discourse, which, he said, is “filled with disillusionment and lacking substance … reason … facts … merits. Those engaged in the debate rarely skim below the surface, then feed off a social media network with a narrow vision of society.

“Snark sells, but it doesn’t stick,” he said of what he labeled “today’s attack culture.”

Kudos to Paul Ryan, even as he leaves government. We’d all be better off if the media practiced a higher-level of journalistic performance and if all of us would support a higher calling for journalists.

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.

In my last blog, I wrote that it appears President Donald Trump operates without a cohesive strategy, preferring to fly by the seat of his pants, even when so much is at stake as he operates on the world stage.

I called his conduct “swagger, not strategy.”

Well, it appears that Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, agrees with me – or perhaps, better put, I agree with him.

Here is what Corker said as he chaired a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hear testimony yesterday from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who also endured often-hostile questions and comments from committee members. Most of the questions related to Trump’s controversial conduct in the Helsinki Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“You (referring to Pompeo) come before a group of senators today who are filled with serious doubts about this White House and its conduct of American foreign policy. From where we sit, it appears that, in a ready-fire-aim fashion, the White House is waking up every morning making it up as they go.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

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.

One of my favorite tactics over the years has been to mimic former late night TV host David Letterman by preparing my own “Top 10 List” in relation to any number of issues.

So, I did so recently in regard to President Donald Trump who continues to amaze with his beyond-understanding conduct, even on a world stage. I will call my list, therefore, a “Bottom 10 List.”

Further, the list below appears in no particular order of priority. Each indicates a trait of “our president,” one I hope has only four years in office. It will be tough enough to survive even that period of time, must less four more years in the nation’s highest political office.

So, here goes:

1. TRUMP’S SUPPOSED STRATEGY? HE DOESN’T HAVE ONE – IT’S ALL TACTICS [This relies on my long-standing belief – one I have followed in all aspects of my career – that strategy comes first, then tactics to implement that strategy. In other words, an overall strategy is the goal; tactics, which shouldn’t be first, are designed to implement the strategy. On this scale, Trump fails miserably.]
2. TRUMP DEMONSTRATES SWAGGER, NOT SUBSTANCE, BELIEVING HE IS ALWAYS THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM
3. TRUMP DEHUMANIZES ALL IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES, THOUGH ALL OF US IN THE UNITED STATES, IN FACT, FIT IN THOSE CATEGORIES, EXCEPT NATIVE AMERICANS
4. TRUMP DEMONSTRATES NO UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMPLICATIONS OF HIS OFF-HAND REMARK, ESPECIALLY AS THOSE OFF-THE-CUFF REMARKS AFFECTS SUCH METRICS AS THE STOCK MARKET
5. TRUMP COMMITS NEAR-TREASON IN HELSINKI, BUT AT LEAST, IF NOT NEAR-TREASON, IS GUILTY OF COLLUSION AND BECOMING A “CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER” TO THE U.S., GIVEN HIS SIDLING UP WITH SOVIET LEADER VLADIMIR PUTIN, THUS RELEGATING U.S. INTELLIGENCE INTERESTS TO SECOND PLACE[Here’s the way Tufts University Professor Daniel Drezner put in a recent Wall Street Journal piece. “President Trump, who has a little something of the later Roman emperors in him, is not engaged in making war on the United States, though it is galling to defend him from such charges given his own propensity for talking treason lightly.  He is not engaged in treason or anything like treason. He is engaged in hypocrisy and moral illiteracy. He is a frank admirer of caudillos such as Vladimir Putin, because in his mind ruthlessness, grasping, and amorality are associated with effective leadership. Hence the praise for Kim Jong-un.”]
6. TRUMP’S USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEFIES LOGIC [Here is the way columnist George Will put it in a recent excellent column: “Precision is not part of Trump’s repertoire: He speaks English as though it is a second language that he learned from someone who learned English last week. So, it is usually difficult to sift meanings from Trump’s word salads.”]
7. TRUMP IS THE ULTIMATE NARCISSIST – EVERYTHING ALWAYS REVOLVES AROUND HIM AND ONLY HIM
8. TRUMP’S VERSION OF “AMERICA FIRST” ONLY MAKES SENSE IF YOU CONSIDER HIS DEFINITION OF IT
9. WITH TRUMP, HONESTY, INTEGRITY AND ETHICAL BEHAVIOR ARE WOEFULLY MISSING
10. WITH TRUMP, TOSS NORMAL POLITICAL CONVENTIONS IN AMERICA OUT THE WINDOW; THERE ARE NO CHECKS AND BALANCES IN HIS SYSTEM, JUST TRUMP’S DICTATORIAL INSTINCTS

As I wrote earlier, I hope America can survive four years of Donald Trump. There are many real Republicans who have renounced that political label because of the misdeeds and over-reach of Trump. I would have, as well, had I now already become “unaffiliated,” which I thought was a better status for a lobbyist.

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 have been involved in public and media relations for my entire career, which underlines why I have no understanding of the way President Donald Trump conducts himself in public.

To suggest that Trump operates with a media or public relations policy is to express an extreme overstatement.

He clearly flies by the seat of his pants.

I have tried to understand his approach, but it is almost impossible for this reason: Over my career, I tried to help clients get through problems, not aggravate them; Trump’s style is the reverse – capitalize on problems or create them, then say he is the smartest person on earth and is the only one who can solve what he, himself, has created.

For one case in the Trump’s universe, just look at Scott Pruitt, the former director of the Environmental Agency who recently resigned from his post under huge ethical clouds.

This from Walter Schaub, former federal ethics director:  “Scott Pruitt’s resignation should be good news. As former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, he is the subject of at least 13 investigations. His rampage through the EPA is the stuff of legend, and it will feature prominently in annual ethics training sessions across the executive branch for years to come. We are, indeed, fortunate to be rid of him, but the wreckage he leaves behind is no cause for celebration.

“Pruitt’s tenure establishes conclusively that President Trump doesn’t care about government ethics, and Congress won’t do anything about it. Pruitt may have been the most extreme offender, but the Trump administration is failing to live up to the animating principles of public service. In some sense, Pruitt’s failures represent a broader failure of government.”

Or, this from columnist Michael Gerson in the Washington Post:  “We are seeing the sad effects of President Trump’s renunciation of moral leadership on American politics and culture — the waning of civility, idealism and respect, and the waxing of contempt, prejudice and racial division. But how is a similar moral abdication — summarized as the doctrine of “America first” — influencing America’s place in the world? And does that really matter?”

So, in response to such comments as those from Schaub and Gerson, below is a summary of three principles I tried to follow in my media relations, lobbying and consultant career.

Some of them are drawn from what I and my partners learned from a mentor, the late Chuck Frost, vice president of one of my lobby firm’s first clients, Tektronix, then Oregon’s largest private company. Chuck also served as an advisor when we started our lobby firm in 1990 and during about 15 years of our operation.

• Build and bank good will. Establishing a pattern of service will serve you well with clients and in the community. Tektronix, under Chuck’s leadership, set out to do that in the Oregon Legislature and in Congress, earning credit that allowed the company to be seen as Oregon’s high-tech business leader.
• Integrity is your main credential — don’t lose it. Always do the right thing. Honesty in business relationships will stand you in good stead regardless of the business environment.
• Advance principles that are not just in your self-interest, but in the public interest, as well. For our firm over the years, this was a critical test in any lobbying or public relations task. Can we pass a public-interest test — is what we advocate on behalf of a client good for the public and not just the client, and can we describe the objective in those terms?

Frankly, my view is that Trump violates all of these and other operating principles. And, he knows, frankly, that he will continue to get away with unscrupulous conduct because that’s the way he has operated for his entire life, a style that is appreciated, unfortunately, by many in this country.

Consider what happened in Britain earlier this month.

First, amazingly, Trump creating a huge diplomatic incident when he lofted intense criticism of his host, British Prime Minister Theresa May only a day before meeting her on the world stage.

Trump kind of apologized to May, but did not entirely back off the critical statements about her handling of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

He used a news conference at May’s country home to assail the news media once again, deny facts in plain evidence and make a series of false or questionable assertions.

The second day of Trump’s visit to Britain was a jarring mix of carefully choreographed pomp and pageantry on one hand and the unpredictability of his relentless convention-breaking on the other. The special relationship between the United States and Britain may survive, but, for a day at least, it was in question.

“I am doing a great job, that I can tell you,” Trump said, “just in case you haven’t noticed.”

Typical Trump. Everything revolves around this narcissist. He is always the one who “is doing a great job.”

I don’t think so.

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.

Ever notice how often Trump talks in circles around himself, apparently getting lost in the jumble of his own words.

If he doesn’t know where he is going in his use of language, then others are lost, too.

And, when he doesn’t know where he will end up, the problems he creates often go beyond just words. Consider Trump’s recent “performance” in Helsinki when he sidled up to Vladimir Putin, committing what some have called near treason.

Columnist George Will put in very well in a recent column commenting on the incredibly poor performance by Trump in Helsinki.

“Precision is not part of Trump’s repertoire: He speaks English as though it is a second language that he learned from someone who learned English last week. So, it is usually difficult to sift meanings from Trump’s word salads.”

Again, if the risks with Trump were confined to words – misusing them and, often, failing to spell them accurately — that would be bad enough for the supposed leader of the free world.

But Christine Emba, writing in the Washington Post, indicates why the issues go farther than words.

“But there are words, and then there is the actual ‘job’ — that of improving the administration, seeking to change it or attending directly to the needs of those affected by its policies. The one can influence the other. Language changes how we think. When we use increasingly divisive and polarized language in the public square, we change how we are able to interact, discuss and exist together. The F-bombs and c-words are a distraction from the actual work that could be done and cut off possibilities for cooperation in the future. And, as professional entertainers should have figured out by now, they’re boring.”

Emba is right.

Words matter.

But actions, often buttressed by confusing words, matter more. And, on that score, as with language, Trump is an abject failure.

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 have blogged about FAKE NEWS before because, as a former media reporter and media relations official, I believe there is no consensus about what the term means.

The Washington Post’s media columnist Erik Wemple provided this example recently when he wrote about Sarah Palin and how she had fallen for an actual fake news approach.

“Now Palin knows what ‘fake news’ really is,” Wemple wrote. “It’s someone seeking an interview under false pretenses — something that the people she has labeled ‘fake news’ don’t do. It’s someone concocting storylines — something that the people she has labeled ‘fake news’ don’t do. It’s someone seeking to embarrass you — something that the people she has labeled ‘fake news’ don’t do.

“Sure — the people Trump, Palin and others label as ‘fake news’ do from time to time make mistakes, crank out false reports and otherwise reach hasty conclusions. Such moments are as inevitable in journalism as malpractice is in medicine and a blown interview is in politics. The simple reality that humans sometimes err factored into the definition of ‘fake news’ as it roared into familiarity toward the end of 2016. Back then, it designated intentionally false reports designed to accomplish a political end and to enable click-baity profit.

Yet, Trump and his flunkies debased it. ‘Fake news’ became a handy term to classify media gaffes and, eventually, stories that the White House just didn’t like. According to one study, four in 10 Republicans ‘consider accurate news stories that cast a politician or political group in a negative light always to be ‘fake news.’ ”

Wemple is right.

In my previous post on this subject, I wrote that there were four types of alleged “fake news.” 

1. THE LITERAL ONE

Fake news is distributed by many interests that, literally, make up stuff, then disseminate the material as attachments to websites, as news releases, and in other ways.

It is clearly material made up out of whole cloth, but, depending on the size of the distribution, it can affects public perceptions.

2. THE CONCOCTED ONE

This relates to what I consider to be staged events that are designed to gain publicity, either a picture on the front page of a newspaper or a few seconds on local TV news.

Examples are demonstrations in government capitols in favor of one thing or another, which are staged to gain news coverage.

3. THE “I DISAGREE WITH IT” ONE

This tends to be what Donald Trump or Sarah Palin mean when they labels something fake news. If he or she disagrees with it, then it is fake.

4. THE “CAN YOU BELIEVE IT ONE”

Here, I cite the story from Iowa a few months ago where Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley wrote an opinion piece for the Des Moines Register that led to speculation he was starting a run for president.

Can you believe it?

I cannot, so I rate the Merkley news as “fake news.”

In all of this, the best attitude is healthy skepticism. Don’t believe, at least at first blush, everything you read on social media sites, hear on the radio or see on TV. Recognize that what you read, hear and see requires a sense of perspective. Form opinions on the basis of a variety of sources rather than just one.