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.

On the day after the 9/11 anniversary, there is no more fitting way to commemorate the memory than to cite comments made by the president at the time of 9/11, George W. Bush.

He spoke yesterday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where Flight 93 went down on the day of the attacks.

Here is what Bush said:

“He warned that dangers to the country now come not only across borders ‘but from violence that gathers from within.’  It was an apparent and obvious reference to the attack on the Capitol on January 6.

“’There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,”’ he said.  ‘But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.  And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

It is possible to criticize Bush for some of his leadership decisions, including entering the Iraq War.  But it is not logical to oppose his comments in Shanksville.

He makes the excellent point that dangers to the U.S. come, not just from external forces, but also internal ones.

Footnote:  If you want to read a solid account of what has happened in the U.S. since 9/11, Washington Post writer, Dan Balz, one of the country’s best commentators going, has a great piede today in the Post.  Worth reading.