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.

Forgive the plays on words in this blog headline.

I just couldn’t resist. 

Especially after reading a column by Helaine Olen that appeared in the Washington Post.

It took on critics who said that President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, should not have dispatched their dog, Major, to a home other than the White House. 

They loved Major, but knew he was not fit for all the normal commotion in the White House, so they gave him to friends.  And they acquired another young dog, Commander, who can be trained to live in all the commotion.

But the writer, Olen, could not resist revisiting comments by Donald Trump over the years, which, she said, illustrates that he hates dogs. 

Doesn’t surprise me because he appears to dislike, even hate, anyone but himself.

Here is what she wrote: elHe

“I wouldn’t take seriously any barking tweets from Trump supporters about these Major matters.  The former president has made clear that he doesn’t care for canines.  He has a track record of using dog insults to belittle humans.

“Remember Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in a military raid?  Trump crowed that he had “died like a dog, he died like a coward, he was whimpering, screaming and crying.”

“Trump gloats when a perceived enemy or rival was ‘fired like a dog.’  His history of comparing political rivals to canines includes claiming that Utah Senator Mitt Romney ‘choked like a dog’ in the 2012 presidential contest and that Florida Senator Marco Rubio was ‘sweating like a dog’ at a 2016 Republican presidential debate.”

So, my conclusion? 

Trump is a dog, though that gives him too much credit and also impugns the character of our dog, Callaway.