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 two words above – salacious and risqué – are being used by reporters as they recount lurid testimony from porn star Stormy Daniels in Donald Trump’s New York trial.

Say what you want, my basic impression is that Trump deserves no less, given the “salacious and risqué” way he has conducted himself over the years, including with Daniels.

No sympathy for him here.

However, it is possible that Daniels’ testimony, given how far afield it went from the specific legal charges against Trump, will just add to the fodder for an appeal.  But, no matter, Trump, if found guilty, was going to appeal for whatever reason, or for no reason at all.  Just for the delay.

Here are a couple excerpts from news and commentary reports:

FROM DANA MILBANK IN THE WASHINGTON POST:  “The trial, which on Monday had been in the doldrums of bookkeepers’ testimony about general ledgers and accounts payable, exploded into its most memorable day yet with the arrival on the witness stand of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels herself.

“For nearly a decade, Trump has been the nation’s main chaos agent:  He causes the mayhem, and the rest of us have to react, adjust, adapt, and try to stay calm.

“But for one day, somebody else was causing the chaos, and Trump and his lawyers were the ones who had to react and adapt.  They had to ride out Stormy’s storm.

MY COMMENT:  Good to see Trump in the hot seat.  I found myself wondering what all his staunch followers would think as I say, he often fell asleep at the defense table despite all the “salacious and risqué” details.

FROM JENNIFER RUBIN IN THE WASHINGTON POST:  “Outside of MAGA-friendly media, observers are not sanguine about his dozing off.

“The Atlantic’s David A. Graham called Trump’s slumbers ‘worrisome.’  He asked, ‘If Trump can’t manage to stay awake during a trial when his very freedom is on the line, what are the chances that he will be able to focus on the intricacies of a spiraling regional war, a trade policy, or any new crisis that might face him if he returns to the White House?’

“One might ask the same of his unhinged rants, juvenile musing about Gettysburg and slurred speech:  Is this a man ready to resume the presidency?”

MY COMMENT:  The dozing off is incredible for a person who describes himself as mentally and physically alert enough to serve as president.

MORE FROM RUBIN:  “Whatever the cause for his frequent drifting off, Trump has drawn plenty of fire from social media and late-night comedians.  The man who has an insulting nickname for so many political foes now gets ribbed as ‘DonSnorleone’ or ‘Sleepy Don’ or ‘TheNodfather.’

“Just as Trump felt compelled to ludicrously lie that his inauguration had the biggest attendance ever, his latest silly fabrication to protect his own ego is revealing — and frightening.  Whether it is crowd size or sleeping or the outcome of an election, Trump demands that we believe him, not our ‘lying eyes.’

“Maintaining his self-image of invincibility entails obliterating objective truth, discrediting independent sources of information (the media was targeted as the ‘enemy of the people’), and propagandizing nonstop.  This is all part of the authoritarian handbook.  If a strongman cannot convince the masses that he is the sole source of truth, at least he can confuse them (‘alternative facts’) so they do not know whom to believe.

“Trump cannot afford to lose the aura of power, control, and defiance he wields to keep his supporters entranced.  A weak, sleepy, and docile Trump is not what drew them to the cult.”

MY COMMENT:  Rubin’s characterization is accurate.  Trump wants to be authoritarian and a dictator. 

America deserves better.

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.

How about this for a story!

Pretend you have just been elected to the Oregon Senate as a Republican representing the Pendleton area in Eastern Oregon, a Republican stronghold in the state.  You look forward to the challenge.

You know Democrats are in charge in at the Capitol in Salem, but you think you can have some effect.

But, soon you will learn what being in the “minority” really means.

Those in charge want to shove such issues as “abortion-on-demand” down the throats of everyone, including Eastern Oregonians.  They want gun control.  They aren’t much interested in rural issues, so they rarely talk to you and your colleagues.

What do you do?

Well, you argue assertively that rural Oregonians deserve to be heard. 

But, despite your arguments, which you utter clearly and respectfully, the Ds don’t listen.

Now, what’s your choice?

Vote and lose?

Or, walk out?

Ten Oregon senators chose the latter in the last legislative session and they are now paying a price, which means they are barred from running for re-election.  Most of them feel the effort was worth it.

Regarding what I will call the “walk-out tactic,” I had a friendly debate with a friend of mine this week about a move that tests an age-old question in OREGON:  What does it mean to represent voters who sent you to serve in the Oregon Legislature?

He thought, once elected, individuals incurred an obligation to stay at the Capitol, come what may.

I responded that, on occasion, given the depth of certain issues, walking out might be the only answer to someone from the East.

The bottom-line question:  Is it right or appropriate for elected officials to “walk out of the Capitol” and stay away to prevent the House or Senate from having a quorum to do the public’s business.

Two views, expressed more generally than just between my friend and myself:

• On one hand, some of those who have won election – like the individual I described above — believe that some issues are so important that the only way to prevent their consideration is to walk out.  In other words, they believe they would be representing their constituents if they walked.

• On the other hand, many observers contend that individuals got elected, so their obligation is to serve on-site regardless of the outcome on sensitive issues.  In other words, they would be representing their constituents if they stayed.

Frankly, I see both sides.  And, remember, by going both ways, I exhibit my traits as a long-time lobbyist in Oregon.

KGW-TV provides this further background.

“In Oregon, the walk-out tactic has become most heavily associated with Senate Republicans in recent years, but both parties have used the tactic in the past, and in both chambers.

“The frequency has increased from 2019 onward, but use of the tactic in Oregon dates all the way back to 1971.”

To understand the gravity of this tactic, consider the plight of Republicans such as the one from Pendleton I described above.  They are not in charge and often chafe under Democrat control.

Plus, voters in Eastern Oregon sent them to Salem for several purposes — to avoid abortion-on-demand, to avoid gun control, and to argue against what has come to be called “the two-Oregons.”  

Urban Democrats are in charge in Salem and rural Republicans have had to play defense lately.

So, last session, the 10 Senate Republicans who walked came up against a voter-passed initiative that said, if legislators incurred too many absences, they could not run for re-election.

The upshot is that 10 senators are shut out from seeking to head to Salem again, though in two cases, relatives of those who cannot run are running instead.

As a retired lobbyist, my solution to the walk-out tactic is straightforward and simple, but probably requires too much “give” from either side to have much of a chance.

It is this:

• If you are from urban Oregon, work hard to understand rural perspectives.
• If you are from rural Oregon, work hard to understand urban perspectives.
• If you are in charge at the Capitol in Salem, do your best to avoid hugely controversial public policy issues – abortion, for instance – that will prevent you from doing the one thing you have to do when you are in Salem, which is to pass the next two-year State of Oregon budget.

See.  Simple. 

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.

Remember that “pin of the head” analogy I have used in the past.

Well, if not, it applies to the subject of “golf course architecture,” which I write about in this blog.

What I know about the subject would fit on head of a pin.  Still, it is an interesting topic for me if only because I have had the privilege of playing more than 200 golf courses in my life with a variety of architectural styles.

One, a so-called “parkland style” is characteristic of where I play most of my golf, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in the town where I live, Salem, Oregon.  It also applies to the course I play in La Quinta, California, The Palms.

Then, for a difference, I have had the privilege of playing golf in Scotland, the “home of golf,” on five different occasions.  There, you encounter “links-style” golf which means you play the ball much closer to the ground, with few trees in your way, close by the ocean.

The idea to write just a bit about this came when I read an article in Links Magazine about two top-level golf course architects who usually work together – Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.  The article listed great “public” courses they had designed.

Crenshaw’s name will ring bells because, besides getting into architecture, he also played professionally, winning two Master’s tournaments, among others.

Here’s what the website says about the Coore-Crenshaw firm:

“Timeless By Design/Admiration and respect for the classic golf courses of the “Golden Age of Architecture” inspired Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore to establish the firm of Coore and Crenshaw Inc. in 1985.  

“Theirs is an architectural firm based upon the shared philosophy that traditional, strategic golf is the most rewarding, and the creation of courses that present this concept with the greatest artistry is the ultimate goal.  They have blended their personal experience and admiration for the classical courses of Ross, MacKenzie, Macdonald, Maxwell, and Tillinghast to create a style uniquely their own.”

Coore and Crenshaw designed two courses at Bandon Dunes, the area on the South Oregon Coast that, due to the inspiration of businessman Michael Keyser, has become a mecca for golfers worldwide.

In 2005, the duo had tough acts to follow in designing the third course at Bandon, Bandon Trails, one of the public courses mentioned in the Links article.

Trails differs significantly from its two oceanside predecessors, Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes, starting, as it does, atop a massive sand dune, working its way into a sprawling meadow, and then climbing into a coastal forest before returning to finish in the dunes.

Some guests who yearn for waterfront holes say Trails is their least favorite, while others consider it the finest routing of an exceedingly strong bunch.

Coore and Crenshaw later built another gem at Bandon, the 13-hole par-3 Preserve Course, in 2012.

And, then, they collaborated on the latest edition to the Bandon courses, the Sheep Ranch built in 2020.

The new course occupies a phenomenal piece of property just north of the main resort that was long shrouded in an air of mystery.

Coore and Crenshaw returned again to the Oregon coast to continue the “golf as it was meant to be” legacy of the Sheep Ranch, building nine green sites along the cliffs and eschewing traditional bunkering on the rough, windswept site marked by old, dead trees (or snags) overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

I had the privilege of playing the Sheep Ranch before it became an actual golf course.

That was due to the course superintendent at Illahe Hills at the time, Bill Swancutt.  He knew staff at Bandon and got four of us an opportunity to play the Sheep Ranch before it became an official course.

We arrived at the site, essentially a promontory overlooking the land out to the ocean.  The staff there talked briefly to the four of us, using a small piece of paper to suggest a routing for us to play 15 of the 18 green flags we could see.

The staff said just to make up the final holes. 

I also asked where to tee off after playing a green – and was told, well, just find a place of flat ground, put your tee in the ground, and go ahead.

So, we did.

It was a great experience.  And, to put a point on it, I have not yet had a chance to play the official course, so am looking forward to it.

To talk about Coore and Crenshaw at Bandon without mentioning two other major architects there would be inappropriate, so I go ahead.

In 1999 when Bandon Dunes opened, the first course there – it’s called, simply, “Bandon Dunes” — was designed by Scotsman David McLay Kidd, who has designed many other courses around the world from his home in Bend, Oregon.

Bandon Dunes, the course, is perched on a bluff high above the Pacific Ocean where Mother Mature’s ever presence had already laid the blueprint for what would become one of golf’s most iconic courses.

The next course, Pacific Dunes, was designed by Michigan architect Tom Doak, and sculpted by his design firm, Renaissance Design, Inc.  Like Kidd, he has gone on to design many other courses around the world.

Why do I choose to write about this?

Well, just because I love golf and this is another way express my enchantment.  Including with “links-style” golf and, if you want to experience, go to Bandon where the courses are an accurate impression of “links-style” golf in Scotland.

So, soon, I’ll head back to Bandon to play the Sheep Ranch in its renowned new role as the sixth official course there.

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 the other day to express my view that protests – including the ones roiling higher education campuses around the country – don’t achieve anything.

Except publicity for the protestors.

[After talking with my wife about this, she reminded me that civil rights protests in this country did achieve objectives.  She is right.  On occasion, protests do play a role in righting terrible wrongs, though not always.]

Now, through solid journalism by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times and others, we are learning that many protests have been organized by the left.

So it is that presidents at a number of institutions are struggling with what to do, or, perhaps, losing their jobs.

Then, this morning I came across a column in the Wall Street Journal by former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, now president of the University of Florida.

He does a great of job of laying out the University’s approach, one that I think deserves to be emulated around the country.

The credibility of what Sasse writes prompts me to reprint his column as my blog.

**********

The Adults Are Still in Charge at the University of Florida

Higher education isn’t daycare. Here are the rules we follow on free speech and public protests.

By Ben Sasse

May 3, 2024 5:26 pm ET

Gainesville, Fla.

Higher education has for years faced a slow-burning crisis of public trust. Mob rule at some of America’s most prestigious universities in recent weeks has thrown gasoline on the fire. Pro-Hamas agitators have fought police, barricaded themselves in university buildings, shut down classes, forced commencement cancellations, and physically impeded Jewish students from attending lectures.

Parents are rightly furious at the asinine entitlement of these activists and the embarrassing timidity of many college administrators. One parent put it bluntly: “Why the hell should anybody spend their money to send their kid to college?” Employers watching this fiasco are asking the same question.

At the University of Florida, we tell parents and future employers: We’re not perfect, but the adults are still in charge. Our response to threats to build encampments is driven by three basic truths.

First, universities must distinguish between speech and action. Speech is central to education. We’re in the business of discovering knowledge and then passing it, both newly learned and time-tested, to the next generation. To do that, we need to foster an environment of free thought in which ideas can be picked apart and put back together, again and again. The heckler gets no veto. The best arguments deserve the best counterarguments.

To cherish the First Amendment rights of speech and assembly, we draw a hard line at unlawful action. Speech isn’t violence. Silence isn’t violence. Violence is violence. Just as we have an obligation to protect speech, we have an obligation to keep our students safe. Throwing fists, storming buildings, vandalizing property, spitting on cops and hijacking a university aren’t speech.

Second, universities must say what they mean and then do what they say. Empty threats make everything worse. Any parent who has endured a 2-year-old’s tantrum gets this. You can’t say, “Don’t make me come up there” if you aren’t willing to walk up the stairs and enforce the rules. You don’t make a threat until you’ve decided to follow through if necessary. In the same way, universities make things worse with halfhearted appeals to abide by existing policies and then immediately negotiating with 20-year-old toddlers.

Appeasing mobs emboldens agitators elsewhere. Moving classes online is a retreat that penalizes students and rewards protesters. Participating in live-streamed struggle sessions doesn’t promote honest, good-faith discussion. Universities need to be strong defenders of the entire community, including students in the library on the eve of an exam, and stewards of our fundamental educational mission.

Actions have consequences. At the University of Florida, we have repeatedly, patiently explained two things to protesters: We will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly—but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended. In Gainesville, that means a three-year prohibition from campus. That’s serious. We said it. We meant it. We enforced it. We wish we didn’t have to, but the students weighed the costs, made their decisions, and will own the consequences as adults. We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.

Third, universities need to recommit themselves to real education. Rather than engage a wide range of ideas with curiosity and intellectual humility, many academic disciplines have capitulated to a dogmatic view of identity politics. Students are taught to divide the world into immutable categories of oppressors and oppressed, and to make sweeping judgements accordingly. With little regard for historical complexity, personal agency or individual dignity, much of what passes for sophisticated thought is quasireligious fanaticism.

The results are now on full display. Students steeped in this dogma chant violent slogans like “by any means necessary.” Any? Paraglider memes have replaced Che Guevara T-shirts. But which paragliders—the savages who raped teenage girls at a concert? “From the river to the sea.” Which river? Which sea?

Young men and women with little grasp of geography or history—even recent events like the Palestinians’ rejection of President Clinton’s offer of a two-state solution—wade into geopolitics with bumper-sticker slogans they don’t understand. For a lonely subset of the anxious generation, these protest camps can become a place to find a rare taste of community. This is their stage to role-play revolution. Posting about your “allergen-free” tent on the quad is a lot easier than doing real work to uplift the downtrodden.

Universities have an obligation to combat this ignorance with rigorous teaching. Life-changing education explores alternatives, teaches the messiness of history, and questions every truth claim. Knowledge depends on healthy self-doubt and a humble willingness to question self-certainties. This is a complicated world because fallen humans are complicated. Universities must prepare their students for the reality beyond campus, where 330 million of their fellow citizens will disagree over important and divisive subjects.

The insurrectionists who storm administration buildings, the antisemites who punch Jews, and the entitled activists who seek attention aren’t persuading anyone. Nor are they appealing to anyone’s better angels. Their tactics are naked threats to the mission of higher education.

Teachers ought to be ushering students into the world of argument and persuasion. Minds are changed by reason, not force. Progress depends on those who do the soulful, patient work of inspiring intellects. Martin Luther King Jr., America’s greatest philosopher, countered the nation’s original sin of racism by sharpening the best arguments across millennia. To win hearts, he offered hope that love could overcome injustice.

King’s approach couldn’t be more different from the abhorrent violence and destruction on display across the country’s campuses. He showed us a way protest can persuade rather than intimidate. We ought to model that for our students. We do that by recommitting to the fundamentals of free speech, consequences and genuine education. Americans get this. We want to believe in the power of education as a way to elevate human dignity. It’s time for universities to do their jobs again.

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.

Back in the day, someone who taught me about writing said it was not smart to start anything with a question.

So, obstinate as I am, I do so in this blog.

Do you care about presidential debates?

I ask because we are on the threshold of who-knows-how-many debates before we vote in the next presidential election.

No less an observer than former Republican political analyst Karl Rove dealt with this subject in his most recent column for the Wall Street Journal.

The column appeared under this headline:

Trump Taunts Biden Over Fall Debates; Will the two men face off?  If so, why not do it the way Kennedy and Nixon did in 1960?

Here is how the column started:

“When President Biden said last Friday that he’d be ‘happy to debate’ Donald Trump, the former president immediately responded on Truth Social:  ‘Everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it, but in case he does, I say, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE.’’

In other words, Trump wanted an immediate head-to-head with Biden.  But, of course, that would be difficult for Trump because he is busy – or perhaps sleeping at the defense table – as he defends himself in a criminal trial in New York.

So far, three debates have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates.  These would take place September 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, October 1 at Virginia State in Petersburg, and October 9 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Rove believes Trump gained two small advantages from the most recent back-and-forth with Biden.  First, Rove says, Trump took the opportunity to build public interest in seeing the two men tangle.  

Second, if debates don’t materialize, last week’s moment of controversy helped build the case that it’ll be Biden’s fault.  This could hurt him with voters, especially if journalists press the president on why he ducked a chance to go head-to-head with his opponent in a live event.

Rove hopes, at least, that presidential debates take place this year because they have played an important role in the past in U.S. democracy.  

• Senator John F. Kennedy’s telegenic appearance in 1960 helped him win a razor-thin election.
• President Gerald Ford’s blooper in October 1976 that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” stopped his upward movement.
• And in 1980’s sole debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Reagan parried Carter’s attacks with grace and wit, causing undecided voters to swing into his column.

In the last two elections, the quality of presidential debates has declined, due mostly to Trump, a man of unregulated emotions, as Rove describes him. 

More from Rove:

“Debates now have an air of spectacle more appropriate to reality television than to a great nation choosing its leader.  We have mobs of donors and cheerleaders, party bigwigs, and corporate underwriters in a gigantic auditorium, hooting and hollering, with ‘special guests’ invited to unsettle the other side.  It’s distracting and juvenile.”

Of course, that’s exactly what Trump, who professes to be a reality TV star, wants.

Thus, Rove suggests debates should return to something more normal, such as the first presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960.  It was held in a small TV studio.  Only the moderator, a panel of journalists, and a handful of network executives were present.

No adoring crowds for either candidate.  No jeering or cheering.  No made-for-TV sound bites.

“A return to simplicity would mean fewer diversions — no cheering or playing to the cheap seats, since there wouldn’t be any.  A more dignified setting might make it costlier for candidates to act up.  It would be easier for the moderator to ask follow-up questions and give each candidate equal time.

“If debates looked less like a professional wrestling match and more like a serious discussion, voters might get a clearer sense of who would be a better president.”

And, finally, this conclusion from Rove:

“Our politics are broken at a time when the nation’s challenges are large and important.  A real conversation between these two men on how they’d lead America could help restore public confidence.  It might even help voters believe they have worthy choices.  There are limitations to how high-minded a debate could be, but we should welcome anything that even marginally improves the degraded state of our politics.”

I agree with Rove.

If presidential debates were fixed like he suggests, they would not just become another Trump campaign circus, which is, of course, wants he wants.

We might learn something about the distinction between the two candidates.

I’d watch.

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.

As a political junkie, I admit to reading every day about Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York.

And as an avid never-Trump person, I hope he pays a price for his efforts to win election by faulty means.  To a degree he has.  The judge fined him $9,000 yesterday for nine cases of defying a gag order.

Not much money for a guy like Trump, but at least it’s a fine for bad behavior.

The other day a friend of mine made a solid point.

A retired attorney, he said lawyers representing Trump in New York, rather than defending Trump directly, may be setting the stage for an appeal, if Trump loses, which is a growing possibility.

Yes, setting up an appeal.

An appeal always is possible in any civil or criminal trial, but could it be the main objective here? 

The grounds might be that the New York judge, Juan M. Merchan, hasn’t “been fair” to Trump, a possibility, if you think about it, that could undergird many of Trump attorney Todd Blanche’s interchanges with Merchan.

All of this came to my mind as I read a “political memo” in the New York Times that (a) included a summary of Trump’s propensity to utter thousands and thousands of words, most of them false, with many misspellings, and (b) a summary of Blanche’s interchanges with the judge.

Here are excerpts from the Times story:

“The question of what is true — or at least what can be proven — is at the heart of any trial.  But this particular defendant, accused by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office of falsifying business records to conceal a sex scandal, has spent five decades spewing thousands and thousands of words, sometimes contradicting himself within minutes, sometimes within the same breath, with little concern for the consequences of what he said.

“Trump has treated his own words as disposable commodities, intended for single use, and not necessarily indicative of any deeply held beliefs. And his tendency to pile phrases on top of one another has often worked to his benefit, amusing or engaging his supporters — sometimes spurring threats and even violence — while distracting, enraging or just plain disorienting his critics and adversaries.”

Now for the excerpts of what Trump or his legal counsel have said that could relate to an appeal:

• Trump attorneys have tried to use political arguments to justify Trump’s actions in the (hush money) case.  During the gag-order hearing last week, one of the attorneys, Todd Blanche, sought to excuse a collection of Trump’s verbal assaults on  Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels (Both whom will be witnesses in the proceedings against Trump.]  He  (Blanche) argued that, in attacking them, the former president had been responding to political attacks by his adversaries.
• The judge wasn’t buying it.  He told Blanche that he was planning to ask, in every example, ‘What precisely is it that your client is responding to?’  When Blanche did not have the requested information at hand, Merchan reminded him of the purpose of the hearing.
• “I am going to decide whether your client is in contempt or not,” he said, adding, “I keep asking you over and over again for a specific example, and I am not getting an answer.’”

Was Blanche baiting the judge?  Perhaps.

And, if he was, my friend in La Quinta will have been prescient in saying the purpose was to support an appeal.

For my part, as a non-attorney who follows politics carefully in this country, I hope both Blanche and Trump fail.