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.

I have said before that I read at least two newspapers every day – the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

There is a clear reason for doing so:  I get a take from the right from the Journal and a take from the left from the Post.  Both occur with good writing and decent scholarship.

Editorials this morning verify the rationale for my approach.

Both deal with an announcement by special counsel John Durham who, for two years, has been investigating issues related to whether the campaign of Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton committed law violations allegedly insinuating that Donald Trump was in league with Russia.

Here’s how the two newspapers interpreted an announcement by Durham:

From the Washington Post:  “On Thursday, special counsel John Durham announced the indictment of D.C. attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI.  Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William P. Barr to examine the FBI’s investigation into alleged ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.

“Donald Trump and his supporters expected Durham to blow the lid off a vast, “deep state”/FBI conspiracy to bring Trump down. But far from a legal bombshell, this indictment is more like a political pop gun.”

From the Wall Street Journal:  “John Durham on Thursday indicted a Clinton campaign lawyer from 2016 for lying to the FBI, but this is no ho-hum case of deception.  The special counsel’s 27-page indictment is full of new, and damning, details that underscore how the Russia collusion tale was concocted and peddled by the Clinton campaign.

“Durham charged Michael Sussmann, an attorney at the Perkins Coie law firm that represented the Clinton campaign.  Sussmann is accused of making false statements to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in a September 19, 2016 meeting when he presented documents purporting to show secret internet communications between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa bank.”

So, which is it?  A “pop gun” of a conspiracy.  Or “blowing the lid off “a conspiracy.

I am not close enough to know, but, for me, from my position in the cheap seats out West, it is enough to read two sides of the same story and make my own decision.