Staff officer rolled pats of butter up (4-4)
I believe the answer is:
soft-soap
'butter up' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'staff officer rolled pats of' is the wordplay.
'staff officer' becomes 'so' (this could be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'rolled' indicates an anagram.
'pats'+'of'='patsof'
'patsof' anagrammed gives 'ftsoap'.
'so'+'ftsoap'='SOFT-SOAP'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for soft-soap that I've seen before include "Use flattering talk" , "Persuade by flattery" .)