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.

What General Milley did was save the country.

That’s my bottom-line view of actions Milley took in the final days of the Trump Administration.  Within his authority, even if barely so, he made sure Trump didn’t push the nuclear button in a fit of his own anger and pique after having lost the presidential election.

A lot has been written lately about actions by Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  

Milley feared that Trump would use a violent crisis at home or abroad to draw the military into his machinations to retain power.  In particular, from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Milley worried that Trump would set off nuclear war.

So, he called the generals in to a conference to emphasize that he, as chairman, should be included in any queue to approve an order to discharge nuclear weaspons.  He also called his counterpart in China to make sure that individual was not overacting to situations in the U.S.

Far from the seat of U.S. power, I had the same worry Milley did through all four years of the Trump presidency.  I feared that the nuclear button was far too close to Trump.

As Washington Post writer David Ignatius wrote, Milley was determined to prevent politicization of the military and “the nation owes him a debt of thanks for his vigilance.”

But, Ignatius adds, “Milley’s efforts also took him into dangerous constitutional terrain that no soldier should have to patrol, edging close to violating the sacrosanct principle ­of civilian control of the military.

“So Milley’s case presents a paradox:  The nation benefited from the actions he took, but the actions also threaten to set a dangerous precedent.  It’s crucial now to use that lesson to rebuild and reinforce the traditional civilian-military structure that was damaged, like so many parts of our national life, during Trump’s presidency.”

In particular, Milley has come under fire in the run-up to the publication of “Peril,” a book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Post.  The book provides new documentation of what has been whispered for months — that Milley reached out to foreign military leaders and U.S. politicians to counteract Trump’s ability to use a violent crisis for political advantage.

Here’s how the writer Ignatius closed his column:

“Milley is a target right now.  But even as we underline the proper limits on the role of military leaders, we should remember that this problem began with a lawless president who threatened to politicize the military — to the point that the top-ranking general decided to fight back to fulfill what he saw as his paramount duty, to safeguard his country.”

Agreed.