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.

If you were going to write about the intoxication of political power for its own sake, there might be no better object than Kevin McCarthy.

Ace newspaper correspondent, Dan Balz, showed up over the weekend with a well-written and well-documented piece on McCarthy.  In the New York Times, it chronicled the over-the-top, dishonest effort by McCarthy to be Speaker of the House if Republicans take control next November.

So much so that he will do anything to remain in contention for the top job.

• Lie?  Yes.
• Change accounts in mid-stream?  Yes.
• Scrap decorum and honesty on the Republican side of the House? Yes.
• Bow at the altar of Donald Trump?  Yes.

Balz’ piece appeared under this subhead:

“Caught in a lie after denying that he talked about urging Trump to resign after the January 6 insurrection, the GOP House leader seeks the former president’s forgiveness to keep his speakership hopes alive.”

Balz continued:

“Power is intoxicating, its pursuit revealing of character but sometimes debilitating; House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) is Exhibit A.  In his ceaseless drive to become the next Speaker of the House, he has demonstrated weakness, hypocrisy, and a willingness to lie to save his skin.

“Thanks to the reporting of Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns of the New York Times, and the incontrovertible power of audio recordingsto bite the mighty at the most inopportune times, it all came together badly for the politician who had seemed poised to lead the House next January.”

Martin and Burns, Balz wrote, quoted McCarthy as having said, in the days immediately after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, “I’ve had it with this guy.”  He called President Donald Trump’s actions on the day of the attack “atrocious and totally wrong,” according to the journalists.

McCarthy told other House leaders on January 10 that he intended to say to Trump the following: “I think impeachment will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

After the Times’ story was published Thursday morning, McCarthy issued a scathing statement denying the report.

“The New York Times’ reporting on me is totally false and wrong. It comes as no surprise that the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda.  The past year and a half have proven that our country was better off when President Trump was in the White House and rather than address the real issues facing Americans, the corporate media is more concerned with profiting from manufactured political intrigue from politically motivated sources.”

Unfortunately for McCarthy, Martin and Burns had the goods, a tape recording of McCarthy’s comments.

Tough for him to refute the facts when he has to hear them in his own voice.

Balz writes on:

“This is what the Republican Party in the House of Representatives now stands for — the abandonment of a principled conservative leader and the possible elevation of a politician whose abiding principle is the pursuit of power, one who has bent and bowed before a former president whose actions he denounced and knew were wrong.”

Balz hopes, as do I, that Republicans think hard about whether to elevate McCarthy to the speakership.

If they cave, Balz concludes with this:  “It will add another ignoblechapter to the modern history of a Republican Party that has soiled itself in bending under Trump’s grip.”

I agree.