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 Inquiring Minds Want to Know, and the Department of “Just Saying.”

So, here are more good quotes:

FROM RUTH MARCUS IN THE WASHINGTON POST:   “The now-unsealed indictment in the case of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta has it all, seemingly every Trump flaw condensed into 49 pages and 38 counts of squalid detail.  It is a devastating legal document, but it is also a damning character study of a man whose faults are all too familiar yet retain the power to shock and appall.”

Comment:  Devastating is too kind a word for Trump who demonstrates, again, his rampant tendency to believe that everything is always all about him, the country’s future be damned.  Call it what it is – narcissism.

FROM KARL ROVE IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “Joe Biden could still win re-election, especially if Trump is the Republican nominee.  But he’s probably the only serious Democrat who could lose to Trump; too many voters see Biden as too old and too weak.  Democrats ignore that real possibility at their peril.”

Comment:  Rove writes a column that uses a lot of poll percentages to indicate Biden’s vulnerability.  No problem.  But, if voters consider character – and if Trump is Biden’s opponent – then Biden should win.

EAMON LYNCH IN GOLFWEEK:  “It’s scarcely an exaggeration to wonder if more people have seen details of America’s classified national security plans than of the armistice between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, though perhaps someday we’ll learn that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is alone in being familiar with the particulars of both.

“The conflict roiling golf was never destined to end in a clear-cut, binary manner with both parties raising hands, one in victory, the other in surrender. Even the broad strokes relayed about the agreement make it difficult to discern who wins and who saves face.  Which is, one supposes, the point.  Specifics are scarce because this deal is less about shaping a future vision than drawing a line under a current problem.”

Comment:  Lynch has been one of the most strident critics of LIV Golf.  Now, for understandable reasons – no one know all the details of what the PGA Tour and the Saudis have done – he pulls his punch a bit by saying it’s too early to pick winners and losers.

Yes.  But, if I was one of the architects of the deal – PGA Tour CEO Jay Monahan – I would have difficulty sleeping at night.

Here’s more of what Lynch wrote – and I agree:

“Monahan can point to savings in the deal – chiefly the billable hours at white-shoe law firms – but in so many other ways the costs are immeasurable.  The association with an abhorrent regime will surface in every partner meeting, in mocking commentary every time the Tour positions itself as inclusive or forward-thinking.  This moral aspect matters less to Tour members and executives.

“Monahan torched their trust, but anger dissipates.  If the settlement promises money, then he can survive as commissioner.  But his faintly anguished look while sitting next to Al-Rumayyan revealed a man fully aware that his reputation won’t endure the abject about-face he performed.”

FROM PEGGY NOONAN IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “But here is the potential political surprise that is on my mind.  For months people have been talking about a serious third party entering the 2024 presidential race.  I believe that, if the major party nominees are Joe Biden and Trump — but only if they are — a third party will certainly enter the race and put up candidates for president and vice president.

“And if a few crucial things break its way — they have to get on almost every state ballot; and put forward a solid ticket, not a brilliant one but solid, two accomplished people, one from each party, presumably political veterans, whom people could see, hear, and think they could do the job —they’d have an even or better than even chance of surprising history by winning.

“If they can do those two difficult things, and avoid scandal and total incompetence, they could do it.  I don’t know other people who think this, but I do.”

Comment:  It’s always interesting to think about Noonan’s words in a column.  A third party?

Perhaps.  But, while I would support a genuine third-party candidate, I have this misgiving.  If that candidate comes across as someone interested in the smart middle in politics, then that candidate might take votes from Biden, thus “giving” the election to Trump.

Another side of this multi-sided coin is that, if a third party candidate were able to garner about 30 per cent of the vote, then, in a three-way race, he or she might have a chance to win.

Worth pondering.