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 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.

This is one of four departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of “Just Saying,” and the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know.

FORESIGHT VS. HINDSIGHT:  This dichotomy came up for me in a piece written by John Bolton that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.  Bolton is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” served as the president’s national security adviser from 2018-19, and was ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06.

Here is a summary of what he wrote dealing with the foresight that prompted Bush to seek out weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the hindsight that criticizes his decision.

“While George Bush 43’s father would undoubtedly endorse calls for more ‘prudence,’ is that really more than merely a talisman for national-security decision-makers?  Academics should recall Dwight Eisenhower’s hand-written draft statement, hastily written for use if the D-Day invasion had failed.

“Eisenhower stood ready to take full responsibility for defeat. ‘My decision to attack at this time and place,’ he wrote, ‘was based upon the best information available.’  The same was true for Bush and his Administration.  What else could they, or anyone else, base their decisions on?

“Which of the two camps was the more prudent?  What would be history’s judgment have been if America hesitated, and suffered another devastating terrorist attack?  That no such attack occurred says more about the merits of overthrowing Saddam than anything else.”

COMMENT:  The Bolton quotes relate to the Bush Administration decision to go to war in Iraq given the possibility, if not the probability, that there were “weapons of mass destruction” there that could be used against the United States and other countries.

Thus, my notion about “foresight vs. hindsight.”

Without much information other than what I read in national newspapers, I always have thought that Bush made the right decision.  The insider intelligence he had at the time said weapons of mass destruction were ready to be used.  Based on foresight, I thought he had no real choice but to proceed as president.

Of course, hindsight has found him to be wrong and critics say – I emphasize using hindsight, which is easy – his wrong decision cost lives and the reputation of the U.S.

FROM DANA MILBANK IN THE WASHINGTON POST:  Milbank skewers George Santos in this Post column.  Frankly, that’s easy, given Santos’ make-believe status.

Milbank writes:

“But the interview (one with British interviewer Piers Morgan) offered some insight into the fabulist’s strategy for political survival — and why it may resonate with some in the MAGA crowd.  True story:  Santos claims he is the victim.  His lies are everybody else’s fault — honest!

“This politics of victimhood, of course, is the essence of Donald Trump (who could, and did, claim it was sunny when it was raining).  Trump loved to complain about how unfairly he was treated by the fake news, about the witch hunts and the hoaxes — and many Republicans believed it.

“Naturally, the technique has filtered down to the rank and file.  Where once there was shame, there is now only grievance, directed at imagined conspiracies of dark forces.

“Like Trump, Santos claimed to be the victim of a ‘witch hunt’ by ‘desperate journalists’ who are ‘not interested in covering the facts.’  He complained of victimization by politicians and party leaders — including Republican officials who he suggested doctored his résumé without his knowledge to include fake test scores and a fake MBA from New York University.”

COMMENT:  Santos claims to be a victim.  No.  Anyone who voted for Santos, or cares about what he says or does, is the victim.  And, on that point, I pledge that this the last I will write about this scofflaw to avoid giving him any additional publicity.

FROM PEGGY NOONAN IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, writing about former president Jimmy Carter as he has decided to remain in hospice at his home in Georgia as he waits for death:  “I’ve been meaning for the longest time to write about Jimmy Carter’s ‘malaise’ speech, long derided by history and cited to explain his landslide drubbing by Ronald Reagan 16 months later.

“It was, in fact, a good speech — brave, original and pertinent to the moment.  It failed because he was exactly the man who couldn’t give it, and he gave it at exactly the moment it couldn’t be heard.

“The backdrop was an air of crisis.  Summer 1979:  The oil crisis, inflation entering double digits, interest rates rising, unemployment too.  There was widespread fear America had lost its economic mojo, perhaps forever.”

COMMENT:  Noonan goes on to make a very salient point.  In hindsight, Jimmy Carter may not have been a great president but, at least according to consensus history, it is clear he has been an excellent “ex president.”

Noonan put it this way:  “He had felt called to the presidency.  His true calling was to be an ex-president, one of the most constructive and inspiring in our history.

“What a good man who tried so hard to understand America and help the world.”