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 read a brief post in a recent Wall Street Journal and came to a broad conclusion.

That’s me.  Reading something short one minute.  Then, coming to a major conclusion in the next.

The post appeared under this headline and sub-head:  “Notable & Quotable:  The White House Culture Has Changed; ‘There’s this whole, ‘You’re not the boss of me’ attitude now.”

Say what?

It appears that, if the post is right, junior staffers in the White House have no difficulty going against the president they serve.

On January 10, Eugene Daniels, reporting for Politico, wrote this:

“Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, President Joe Biden’s consistent support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response has prompted a series of anonymous letters from staffers within the White House, the State Department and the Biden campaign — letters that have left politicos of a certain age shaking their heads.

“The notion that junior staffers in such coveted jobs would dare cross the principal — even anonymously — would have been inconceivable not long ago, they say. 

“There’s this whole, ‘You’re not the boss of me’ attitude now. ‘I might work for you, but I have my own views,’” said longtime Democrat strategist James Carville, who worked for former President Bill Clinton as a top campaign strategist. 

“’The bargain a staffer strikes has always been this:  You get to influence the decisions of the most powerful government in the history of the world,’ said Paul Begala, who worked alongside Carville in the Clinton White House.

“In exchange for that influence, you agree to back the final decision even if it goes against your advice.  If confronted with a decision that crosses one’s ethical, moral, social, and political lines, the choice is clear:  Shut up and support it, or resign.”

There, the bottom-line point:  If a decision goes against your ethical principles, you have two choices – “shut up and support it, or resign.”

Let me propose this key difference.

In a business organization, if you disagree with a decision, but it is just that – a disagreement over a decision — you have a basic choice, go with it and support it. 

But, if the decision happens to go against your more basic ethical, moral or principled fiber, then you have the two choices listed above – stomach it, or resign.  And the latter may be your best approach.

As for a culture change in today’s White House, the Politico writer, Daniels, says unauthorized leaks in the Donald Trump presidency became a form of political currency, with anonymous officials writing op-eds, and wild bits of drama routinely finding their way into the news.

Inside the current White House, Daniels writes, there’s a feeling that the culture has now irrevocably changed.

For me, I hearken back to the time I co-managed a lobbying and public affairs firm in Oregon, CFM Strategic Communications.

We told staffers that, if they had strong opposing views to a client we were taking on, we would not require them to work on that client.

But, if they found us violating their basic principles, then they had the choice outlined above – inform us about their problem, encourage us to change, or if we did not change, then live with the decision or strike out on their own.

If the above about the White House is true, I wish staffers would behave the same way I outlined in my old firm.