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.

Remember what you were doing last January 6?

I do.  I was watching and hearing an insurrection by a group of so-called Americans trying to overthrow the government.

So, on this anniversary of January 6, I started my day, as I usually do, by reading two major U.S. newspapers – the Wall Street Journal that operates from the right center and the Washington Post that operates from the left center.

In this way, I read ideas that help me come up with my own views.

So it was this morning – the anniversary of the events January 6, 2021 — that I read both newspapers.

The result?  Predictably, two views.  They didn’t necessarily conflict.  They just came to different conclusions as we commemorate a fateful anniversary.

Here is a quick summary of the two views:

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “Democracyisn’t dying.  January 6 was a riot, not an insurrection, and U.S. institutions held.

“The Capitol riot was a national disgrace, but almost more dispiriting is the way America’s two warring political tribes have responded.  Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi seem intent on exploiting that day to retain power, while the Donald Trump wing of the GOP insists it was merely a protest march that got a little carried away.

“One lesson is that on all the available evidence January 6 was not an ‘insurrection,’ in any meaningful sense of that word.  It was not an attempted coup.  The Justice Department and the House Select Committee have looked high and low for a conspiracy to overthrow the government, and maybe they will find it.  So far they haven’t.”

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:   “On January 6, the fight for democracy came home.  There’s still so much we don’t know.

“One year ago, President Donald Trump incited a violent mob of his supporters to desecrate the U.S. Capitol.  Their goal:  To prevent Congress from counting electoral votes and declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

“It appeared possible that Trump’s campaign to advance his personal interests at the expense of the country’s had finally reached a turning point. So shocking was the disregard for the democratic process that even senior Republicans might understand the peril they had invited by bowing to Trump.

“But Trump quickly regained hold of the Republican Party. Three weeks after Jan. 6, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made a penitential pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.  He and his fellow Republicans rejected efforts to create a bi-partisan panel to investigate the insurrection; some even defended the rioters.

“They booted Representative Liz Cheney out of their leadership for refusing to go along with Trump’s lies. Republican state legislatures passed anti-voting measures and conducted bogus vote audits designed, not to reconfirm the integrity of what experts declared to be a safe and secure election, but to provide fodder for conspiracy theorists.”

For me, both views are inadequate.

The Wall Street Journal falls down on the side of definitions, contending that the events of January 6 were a “riot, not an insurrection.”

Yet, the dictionary defines insurrection this way:  “A violent uprising against an authority or government.”

Anyone with eyes and ears could see and hear that January 6 was an insurrection.

By contrast, the Washington Post opts for the position that “we need to know more.”

Agreed.  But, again, with eyes and ears, there was no question that we an assault on our form of government was under way.  More information would indict participants, but we already saw and heard was happened.

So, where are we on this fateful anniversary?

I wish it were true that we learned lessons last January 6, so we are able avoid another insurrection. 

So far, I fear the jury is out.