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.

The headline on this blog captures a huge point in politics these days.

Character used to matter.  It may not matter at all these days.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, essayist Joseph Epstein posted a column in this week.  It appeared under this sub-head:

“An insistence on decency in presidential candidates might be a start to restoring national political life to a respectable level.”

Excellent point.

Epstein continued:  “I admire my friends who no longer watch cable news. I doubtless take in too much of it, typically switching among the three main networks: Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.  I watch most of it with a book or magazine in my lap, but stories about the seemingly endless lawsuits against Donald Trump and accounts of the skullduggery of Hunter Biden and his father (“the Big Guy”) get my attention.”

Epstein is candid enough to admit that, from the standpoint of “decency,” he doesn’t like either President Joe Biden or Republican candidate Donald Trump.

“Trump, who comes across so bold, and Biden, who wishes to seem so sly, strike me as roughly equal in their depravity.  I think of the one as the Manchurian Cantaloupe and the other as the Old Gaffer.”

He adds that he wishes failure to both, so we – Americans – can consider candidates who practice and exude decency.

Epstein says each man has risen to the presidency thanks, mostly, to the unattractiveness of his electoral opponent.  

“Each man was elected as a lesser-evil choice, yet both have succeeded in vastly polluting the tone of our country’s political life.  Lesser-evil choices sometimes turn out to be evil enough.

“Low and seedy are the corruptions of which Messrs. Trump and Biden have been accused:  Molesting women, entering into dubious financial dealings with foreign corporations and governments, cavalierly mishandling important documents, and more.

“Yet, both men have been leaders of the free world, as the old saying had it, and both men want another go at it.  Worse yet, as things currently stand, one or the other is likely to be successful.  Little wonder that in most opinion polls a strong majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.”

Epstein wonders if there is any way to get what he calls “these two bozos” off the national stage? 

So far, neither political party seems ready or willing to do so.

“The party that prides itself on probity and family values is likely to be represented by a man found liable for sexual abuse, while the party that prides itself on fairness and social justice by a man whose son has allegedly siphoned off millions from the sale of political influence that he may have shared with his father.”

During their presidencies, Epstein remembers that George W. Bush and Barack Obama were at least able to elude financial and sexual scandal.  Say what you will about their decisions as president, both evidenced traits of character and decency.

I with for a return to such traits.  Decency matters.