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.

One thing that has bugged me for years about Donald Trump and those who shill for him is that they wrap themselves in the American flag, yet

have no respect for it.

I say this:  Save the American flag for those who support America, some of whom have died in the process.

As for Trump, he is opposed to America, so why does he choose to use the flag.

I don’t know.

Washington Post columnist Maureen Dowd does.  Thus, she wrote a recent column under this headline:  “The Florida Fraudster and the Russian ‘Killer’”

Here is how she started her column:

“When I covered George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1988, he was so eager to wrap himself in the American flag that he took us to a New Jersey flag factory.  That way, he could claim that the GOP was ‘on the American side’ while caressing pieces of striped, red-and-white nylon.

“At the time, it seemed like a cynical move by Republicans, trying to bogart patriotism.  But at least they respected our country enough to try to monopolize its symbol.”

Dowd continues:

“That vanishing breed of Republican pledged allegiance to the American flag.  Now, Republicans pledge allegiance to Donald Trump’s ego.  He has to be bigger than everything — even America itself.

“’Bush wrapped himself in the American flag,’ Democrat analyst David Axelrod said.  ‘Trump wants to wrap himself in the Mar-a-Lago flag.’

“Just as Trump has remade the Republican Party in his own nasty and selfish image, he wants to remake America in his own nasty and selfish image.

“Trump doesn’t seem to subscribe to any of the verities about this country.  He doesn’t believe America is exceptional.  He only believes that Trump is exceptional — an exception to all the rules that the rest of us live by.”

Alexrod goes on by saying, “If American laws get in his way — like counting votes to choose a president — he tries to smash them.  He’s bigger than democracy, after all.

“If American values get in his way — like our distaste for authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban — he mocks those values.  When Putin and Orban flattered Trump, that seemed more important to the Mar-a-Lago megalomaniac than our nation’s proud history of facing down autocrats.”

The writer Dowd then concludes:

“America the Beautiful, our Shining City on a Hill, is not so hot to Trump.  Get in his way, and he will bust up institutions, trash courts, tear down cultural icons like Taylor Swift, and egg on acolytes to storm the Capitol.

“He doesn’t see America as the idealistic leader of the free world. He sees the world as ‘The Hunger Games,’ as Axelrod put it.  And frighteningly, Trump sometimes acts as if he prefers America’s enemies to America.

“The former president shocked the world last weekend when he said at a rally that if NATO countries did not pay more for defense, he would ‘encourage’ Russia ‘to do whatever the hell they want’ to our allies.  Biden called that ‘un-American.’”

So, in conclusion, I say, don’t let Trump wrap himself in the American flag.  Save the flag for those who deserve its genuine patriotic purpose, such as those Trump hates, military veterans who have served America with distinction and sacrifice.