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.

I wrote about this yesterday, but couldn’t help myself from doing so again.

So, here are excerpts from some media coverage, plus my ending thought.

FROM JORDAN KLEPPER, GUEST HOST OF THE DAILY SHOW:  “Look, I’m happy for Dominion, but Dominion was not the only injured party here.  What about, you know, our faith in democracy?

“There are people who will not trust elections for the rest of their lives, and I have to talk to those people!  I’m going to be arguing with them at Trump rallies every four years for the rest of my life.  

“And you know what? I’m not naïve.  I didn’t expect this lawsuit to restore this country’s faith in elections or even for me to get a little cashola, no.  But I was at least hoping to get a couple of weeks of joy out of seeing Sean Hannity up there on the stand, sweating through his shirt like a beached manatee.

“Would that have saved democracy? I don’t know.  But it would have been nice to see.”

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:  “It was a far cry from the apology Dominion sought.  But a Dominion spokeswoman said that the sheer size of the settlement was enough.

“An apology is about accountability, and today Dominion held Fox accountable.  Fox paid a historic settlement and issued a statement acknowledging that the statements about Dominion were false.

“There was relief, too, inside Fox, as it was spared more of what one employee called ‘a traumatic’ episode that had preoccupied Fox’s rank and file.

“Fox executives had also been convinced that Dominion’s lawyers would work to embarrass their stars — and especially Murdoch — on the witness stand, and they were pleased the solution meant those people would be kept out of court, a person familiar with the matter said.

“The settlement will not be the end of the 2020 story for either company: Fox faces the other defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, which has asked for $2.7 billion.  And Dominion is pursuing lawsuits against individuals and groups that pushed falsehoods about its products after the election, including One America News and Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell.

“Democrat Kathy Boockvar, who assecretary of the commonwealthin Pennsylvania helped certify President Biden’s victory there in 2020 and has faced threats ever since, said the settlement would be particularly persuasive to large corporations, including Fox itself.

“’Deterrence matters,’ Boockvar said.  ‘This sends a clear message to other networks and particularly to Fox as we enter the 2024 campaign season: They better think twice about purveying lies.

“’Accountability takes many forms, but dollars speak loudly to large corporations.’”

AND THIS COMMENT FROM ME:  Like others, I would have, (a) enjoyed watching Hannity, Carlson, Bartiromo, Murdoch and others suffer under the glare of a suit and cross-examination as both made clear the lack of journalistic ethics of quality, and (b) a requirement for Fox to publish an on-air apology.

[Interesting, though not surprising, also to note that Fox didn’t cover the settlement on its airwaves.]

But, I will let this lie with the reality that the huge dollar settlement “will speak loudly to large corporations, including Fox.”