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 of 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.

It tended to get lost in the shuffle of a long news conference, but President Joe Biden asked a good question the other day.

It was this:  What are Republicans for?

Karen Tumulty, deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Post, went on to write this:

“What are Republicans for?  Name me one thing they’re for.”

“When President Biden posed that question at his news conference Wednesday, he no doubt meant it rhetorically.

“But there is, in fact, an answer.  Today’s Republicans are for whatever they think can restore them to power.  When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked what agenda Republicans plan to run on in their bid to regain control of Congress in this year’s mid-term elections, he replied:  “That is a very good question, and I’ll let you know when we take it back.”

Now, national Republicans no doubt would dispute that they have no agenda.  So, they should announce what it is – if it actually exists.  Then, we could use that information to help us vote next year.

During my long career in and around state government, I always said it was important for the clients I represented to be FOR something, not just AGAINST something.

For that reason, I always counseled clients to come up with ideas to propose to the Oregon Legislature because I said it still mattered to “have ideas.”

• If clients had concerns about the rate of state spending, they should be FOR citing examples of what could be cut, not just oppose spending generally.   
• If clients had concerns about the regulation of health insurance, they should be FOR providing specific examples of how burdensome regulation boosted costs for policyholders.
• If clients had concerns that there wasn’t enough money being directed to low-income health care, they should be FOR finding innovative ways to show how low-income health care funding would benefit the entire state.

[In fact, that’s exactly what Providence Health & Services did by enabling nurses and doctors to advocate for the spending – call them investments – given their first-hand, on-the-ground knowledge of the benefits.]

• If a client wanted to advocate for funds to deepen the Columbia River channel to aid maritime commerce, it should be FOR showing how the project would benefit export or import businesses in every county in Oregon, as well as the region.

[In fact, that’s exactly what the main channel deepening advocate, the Port of Portland, did to illustrate benefits for businesses in every corner of the region.]

Back to Tumulty for comments on huge national “BE FOR SOMETHING” issues:

• In the coming months, national Republicans will have to come up with something that resembles an agenda, if only for appearance’s sake.  Questions abound about the seriousness of that effort and whether the Republican policy platforms will amount to much more than a messaging effort.
• The GOP once prided itself, justifiably, on an intellectual seriousness that had made it the “party of ideas.”  That label was bestowed on it in 1980 by a Democrat, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Five years later, fresh off being re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history, President Ronald Reagan declared:  “The tide of history is moving irresistibly in our direction.  Why?  Because the other side is virtually bankrupt of ideas.  It has nothing more to say, nothing to add to the debate.  It has spent its intellectual capital.”
• Now, pretty much the same could be said for the Republicans themselves.  There was a time when it was easy to define conservatism as a set of principles.  Republicans had their share of raging internal debates, but they always brought it back to a few big concepts — among them, limiting the size and reach of government, reducing taxes, strengthening national defense, and holding firm to traditional moral values.  
• That Republicans had become completely dismissive of policy was obvious at least by 2020, when the party didn’t even bother to write a platform for its convention. The one-page document the GOP produced asserted merely that the Republican National Committee enthusiastically supports President Trump and continues to reject the policy positions of the Obama-Biden Administration, as well as those espoused by the Democratic National Committee today.”
•  Shorter version:  We’re for whatever shifting sands Trump happens to be standing upon at the moment.

Now, Republicans seem to be retaining the same bankruptcy.  They have no ideas.  They just want, as Tumulty avers, to stand on the shifting sands of Trump positions.

As Americans, we should not let them get away with failing to announce  reasons why we should trust them with our national future.  The same expectation should exist for Democrats.

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 of 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.

In case you didn’t notice, President Joe Biden held a stand-alone news conference this week on the date of the end of his first year in office.  It lasted, incredibly, two hours.

Various commentators and pundits were quick to rate his performance, both in his first year, as well as in the press conference.

Not surprisingly, he got both credit and debit.

But there is one fact that rises above all others.

We should be grateful every day that Biden is in office rather than former president Donald Trump and the band of incompetents who used to run the government.

Washington Post editorial writers put it this way:

“One can only imagine how much worse off the country would be if Trump were still dispensing bizarre medical advice from the White House, running a Russia-friendly foreign policy as the Kremlin prepares to invade Ukraine, or continuing to deny climate change.

“Biden also has restored integrity to the Oval Office, neither lying nor abusing his authority the way Trump did.  And the president can claim some important accomplishments.  Most Americans are vaccinated.  His covid-19 aid bill alleviated child poverty during the worst of the pandemic. The country is only beginning to see the benefits of the $1 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill that will fund massive investments in green energy, highways, bridges and rail, which passed under his leadership.”

[As an aside here, I add that some Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill are now lauding its benefits where they live.]

Further, the Post made a very salient point what it said that “a president controls only so much.  He or she can do little about inflation and even less about the viral genetic mutations that lead to new coronavirus variants.”

Too often in my experience, we expect presidents and governors to fix things, as if they had ultimate power to do so. They don’t.

As a state lobbyist, I often concluded this when I saw governors get credit for economic growth and debit for economic failure.  Mostly, they deserved neither…at least not full credit nor full debit.

What’s true now, according to several media analysts, is that Biden needs to tack toward the practical.  That could mean finding a way to endorse a smaller “Build Back Better” bill.   It could mean, despite a U.S. Supreme Court setback, continuing to advocate for virus vaccination mandates (though his vaccine initiative suffered another setback yesterday when a judge rules that a mandate for federal workers should not be allowed).

Washington Post commentator E. J. Dionne put Biden’s challenge this way:

“Here is where middle-of-the-road critiques of Biden are right: 

• “He needs to focus incessantly on the virus and inflation — twin challenges that are top of mind for most Americans.
• “He needs to settle on a strategy that reaches toward as much normality as is consistent with the virus threat, and he needs to put an end to confusing messaging from various parts of the government.
• “On inflation, he needs highly visible efforts to unsnarl the supply chain.
• “He needs to resolve the core contradiction of his presidency — between his longing to be the great unifier and his desire to do big things Republicans were bound to oppose.”

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson added this point:

“It must be deeply frustrating for President Biden to take stock of his underappreciated successes. His economic performance is being trashed after the creation of 6 million jobs. His economic stewardship is being questioned in a country with 3.9 per cent unemployment. His pandemic response is being broadly criticized even though more than 75 per cent of American adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine (compared with fewer than 20 per cent 10 months ago).”

“These claims< Gerson says, “are Biden administration talking points. They have the added virtue of being true.”  Which, I add, is a huge contrast with lies and exaggerations under Donald Trump.

Will Biden be able to strike this middle-of-road re-set?  No one knows.  But, what hangs in the balance as we approach the mid-term elections is, in fact, the future of his presidency.

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 of 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.

Seek controversy.

Avoid controversy.

Two options.

During my time dealing with the media in a 40-year professional career, I followed a simple axiom:  Limit or even avoid controversy.

• I advised managers I worked with in state government in that way. 

• I advised lobby clients in that way. 

• I advised public relations clients in that way.

Would I do the same today?

Well, that is my first instinct.

I almost always thought that keeping my clients out of controversial trouble was better than the reverse.  Honesty and forthrightness were better than becoming defensive, aggressive and testy.

However, as I look at an increasingly violent political world these days, I note that many political figures work to engender controversy, not avoid it.  They must believe controversy helps them achieve their objectives – and, if one of the objectives is to make enemies of those who don’t agree with you, then controversy works.

But, controversy, for its own sake, doesn’t improve the political context so public policy decisions can be made in a way that benefits the country.

Consider these examples of controversy seemingly for its own sake.

SENATOR RAND PAUL:  Paul has gone after Dr. Anthony Fauci by generating controversy.  He has used his website to generate political contributions by advocating that Fauci be fired. 

TRUMP ACOLYTES MARK MEADOWS AND KEVIN McCARTHY:  They use controversy to impugn the character and motives of anyone who disagrees them, including members of the U.S. House Committee that is investigating the January 6, 2021 “insurrection.”

[As an aside, I put the word “insurrection” in quotes because of a game going on now which is to dispute that the January 6 insurrection was exactly that.  Anyone with eyes and ears could see and hear that it was a violent attempt to take down the country – an “insurrection.”]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:  In nearly all his actions, he covets returning to the nation’s highest political office by not only engendering controversy but inflaming it.

If President Joe Biden and Democrats say one thing, Trump says another.  If someone proposes actions against him, Trump skewers them in over-the-top words.

For my part, as a 40-year veteran of public policy processes, I like words, phrases and actions that seek and promote middle ground.  That don’t set out to inflame controversy.

Just call me Poly-Anna.

Plus, another virtue of my way of doing public policy is that we wouldn’t have to contend again with Trump.  A worthy end in and of itself.

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 of 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.

Isn’t duplicity a good word?

It sort of rolls off the tongue.

And, these days, it describes various individuals involved in “political” issues, as will be shown by three examples below.

First, the definition.  The dictionary defines duplicity as:

“Deceitfulness; double-dealing.”

Sound familiar?  It should.  Here, then, are the three examples as I focus on another good word – duplicity.

TUCKER CARLSON:  Washington Post contributing columnist Matt Bai says this about Carlson, the vehement leader of the far right as he emotes on Fox News:

“Normally, I don’t spend much time thinking about the nonsense on cable television, because it’s like paying attention to the guy on the street corner who shouts about Armageddon through a bullhorn.  Some words are just noise.

“Last week, though, Tucker Carlson acidly attacked a former colleague of mine, and what he said got me thinking about one of the most persistent myths of our media moment.

“Here’s what happened:  Jon Ward, a top political reporter at Yahoo News, was about to post a critical story about Carlson’s Fox News series looking at the 2020 election and the insurrection at the Capitol. (Shocker:  Carlson says it was all a leftist conspiracy.)

In a pre-emptive attack on Ward’s piece, Carlson launched into a tirade on his nightly Fox News show, accusing Ward of doctoring a transcript of Carlson’s on-air comments.

Even by the standards of prime-time cable, Carlson’s rant was remarkably personal.  

COMMENT:  Carlson is the epitome of bad journalism.  In fact, what he practices is not journalism at all.  It is the practice of defamation and intimidation, using the stage Fox News gives him to achieve both ends – and all for ratings.

In reality, Bai adds, “the easiest thing to do right now is what Carlson does — to seek out the ardent applause of one side or the other, because the more strident and predictable you are, the more eyeballs you attract and the more appreciation you’ll garner.

“If Carlson wants to know what weakness really looks like, he should give that mirror a longer look.”

Agreed.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT:  In a decision last week, the Supreme Court says we cannot have in our workplaces what it has in its, which is to take the precautions necessary to keep a workplace safe.

Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ruth Marcus makes this abundantly clear in a column she wrote over the weekend.

Commenting on a Supreme Court decision, she says, “The court has been effectively closed to outside visitors since the start of the pandemic.  Now that the justices have begun hearing oral arguments in person, the lawyers appearing before them, and the reporters in the chamber, must test negative and be masked, except when speaking.  Justices who aren’t comfortable with those protocols — or with the mask-less behavior of their colleagues — have the flexibility to work remotely.”

If only the court, Marcus opines, “were willing to allow extending similar protections to the rest of us, in our workplaces.  Or to be more precise, not to interfere with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s effort to provide such protections.

“The factory workers standing cheek by jowl on assembly lines, the office workers crammed side by side at their cubicles, the cashiers and sales clerks at retail establishments — none of them enjoy the guaranteed safety protocols that the court has awarded to itself.”

COMMENT:  The duplicity of some members of the Court was illustrated even more vividly last week when Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared for oral arguments without a mask.

Marcus writes that “the court’s 6-to-3 ruling Thursday blocking the Biden Administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate is yet another example of the elite playing by one set of rules while applying a different standard to the masses.”

Agreed.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC:  This example is almost too obvious to cite.  The reigning tennis star exemplified duplicity when he tried to travel to the Australian Open in Melbourne without being vaccinated.  That would have a violation of Australia rules requiring vaccines.

COMMENT:  What he thought, I guess, was he was such a sports star that he deserved preferential treatment.

Didn’t happen.

Authorities in Australia, after a bit of to’ing and fro’ing, finally ruled that he could not play and so deported him.

Good.

These three examples illustrate that duplicity is rampant.  It should not be.

Better to value transparency, honesty, and forthrightness in all we do – both in politics and in life.

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 of 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 question posed in this blog comes up for a simple reason:  There is no direct, specific answer.

And, does the lack of an answer matter?

It does for some and not for others.

For me, as a lobbyist, before I retired, it would have mattered.  I spent much of my time in the Capitol Building lobbying legislators on behalf of my firm’s clients.

But, at the Capitol for so many years, it always struck me as strange that access was so easy.  Especially in Salem which is the home of major prison and mental health facilities only blocks away from the Capitol.

All this has changed recently with an announcement by Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek.  It said this:

“Anyone entering the Capitol will be required to pass through a security checkpoint.  That entails walking through metal detectors staffed by security guards and having bags checked by hand or sent through an X-ray machine.” 

Finally.

At the same time, all committee meetings during the coming February short session will be held virtually, which is why I say therCapitol is both open and closed.

My word “finally” was echoed this week by my friend, Dick Hughes, former editorial page editor of the Salem Statesman Journal and now a columnist for Oregon Capitol Insider.

He wrote this:

“Top of Form

Bottom of Form

When I began covering the Oregon Legislature full-time, I could enter the State Capitol because, as a member of the Capitol press corps, I had a key.  

“…That around-the-clock access had been handy.  I beat other reporters on stories not because I had more talent or smarts – I don’t – but because I outworked them.  In the 1980s, I learned to be the last one in the pressroom each day, especially on Friday nights when state regulators tended to drop off press releases announcing the latest closures of insolvent banks. I sometimes came in on weekends to write in quiet or to check the press release drop-box.”

Further Hughes remembers what I remember…this:

Savvy state officials, such as Secretary of State Norma Paulus, periodically strolled through the pressroom to share news tips before heading home. Back then, security was so relaxed that Governor Vic Atiyeh often ate lunch in the Capitol cafeteria with everyone else.

I also remember when Atiyeh – I worked for him as his press secretary – would venture down to the pressroom in the basement to talk personally with reporters.  I never knew what stories would develop, though the governor’s conduct illustrated two of his best qualities – openness and accessibility.

Hughes also that, in contrast to Atiyeh, Senate President John Kitzhaber was not easy to catch. 

“At the end of the day,” Hughes remembers, “he would occasionally hang out by the governor’s SUV – long before they were called SUVs – in the Capitol’s underground parking garage, hoping for a brief interview.

All this occurred with a fully open Capitol building.

The new Capitol security changes were expected after the 2021 Legislature banned holders of concealed weapon permits from having their firearms in the Capitol.  Of course, it is natural to use metal detectors to verify that the ban is working.

Further, the Legislature’s presiding officers ordered legislative employees to work remotely whenever possible and confirmed the point that committee meetings in February would be held virtually, not in person.

So, I am sure how my former colleagues in my lobbying firm will function in their bid – actually “their need” – to talk with legislators on behalf of clients.  They may have to continue to resort to less-than-personal means, such as phone calls, texts, and e-mails.

Of course, there always is the opportunity to meet with legislators outside the Capitol building. 

For me, just glad I am not there any longer, metal detectors and all.

This is the second of two blogs on the subject of “experts”

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 of 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.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog about how to avoid relying solely on certain experts, even as you form your own views, especially on political issues.

As examples of “experts,” I used President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who have engaged in an aggressive war of words over voting laws in the United States, especially in Georgia.  And they fancy themselves, surely, as “experts.”

Today, I follow-up with another blog on the same subject – expertise.

In this second installment, I use, as food-for-thought, a column yesterday by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post.  It appeared under this headline:

The GOP celebration of covid ignorance is an invitation to death

His main point:  Avoid relying on any “expert” who peddles lies.  Which, often, means Donald Trump and his acolytes.

Here is how Gerson started his column:

“When the future judges our political present, it will stand in appalled, slack-jawed amazement at the willingness of GOP leaders to endanger the lives of their constituents — not just the interests of their constituents, but their lungs and beating hearts — in pursuit of personal power and ideological fantasies.”

And, it could be added, these individuals fancy themselves – and promote themselves – as experts.

Gerson identifies what he labels “three varieties of GOP political necromania.”

• The first, practiced most vigorously by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, uses an ongoing pandemic as a stage for the display of ideological zeal.  In this view, the covid-19 crisis — rather than being a story of remarkable but flawed scientists and public health experts deploying the best of science against a vicious microbe — has been an opportunity for the left to impose “authoritarian, arbitrary and seemingly never-ending mandates and restrictions.”
• A second type of the Republican romance with death comes in the vilification of those most dedicated to preserving the lives of Americans.  Public officials such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul invent a conspiratorial backstory to the covid crisis and depict the most visible representatives of the United States’ covid response as scheming, deceptive deep-state operatives.  Any change in emphasis or strategy by scientists — an essential commitment of the scientific method — is viewed as rich opposition research.
• A third category of Republican death wish is the practice of strategic ignorance.  In a case such as Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson — America’s most reliable source of unreliable information about covid-19 — such ignorance might not be feigned.  He might well believe that gargling with mouthwash call kill the coronavirus, and that thousands of people are regularly dying from vaccine side effects, and that a pandemic that has taken more than 800,000 lives in the United States is “overhyped.”

Gerson says Johnson offers his lack of intellectual seriousness as an element of his political appeal — “similar to handing out a résumé with the firings and felonies highlighted.

“Johnson is not only making dangerous statements about the coronavirus. He is using his willingness to cite stupid things as the evidence of his independence from the rule of professionals and experts.  He is defining democracy, in the words of Tom Nichols, author of “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters,” as unearned respect for unfounded opinions.”  

Johnson, Gerson writes, is practicing strategic ignorance.

And, Gerson adds:

“During a pandemic, the celebration of ignorance is an invitation to death.  Public health depends on social cooperation.  If a significant group of Americans regard the musing of a politician such as Johnson as equal in value to Fauci’s lifelong accumulation of expertise, the basis for rational action is lost.  And the result is needless death.”

And, it also underlines the best advice for us – choose wisely the “experts” on whom you rely as you go through the process of forming your own views.

This is the first of two blogs on the subject of “expertise.”

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 of 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.

Of all things, a philosophy teacher from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania produced solid advice for the wise this morning.

In the Washington Post, the teacher, Crispin Sartwell, wrote a piece that appeared under this headline:

Nothing can relieve you of the burden of deciding what to believe.

He’s right.

In today’s political system that values disagreement over consensus, it is hard to know what to believe about society, especially during a pandemic. And, whom do you trust among the “experts.”

Sartwell goes on:

“The media have noticed that experts disagree. A strange unity of confusion is emerging.  A common inability to decipher conflicting advice and clashing guidelines coming from government, science, health, media and other institutions.  On seemingly every front in the battle against the coronavirus, the messages are muddled: mTest or don’t test? Which test? When?  Isolate or not?  For five days?  Ten?  Go to school or not?  See friends and resume normal life, or hunker down again?”

Yet, for many people, deferring to the experts appears central to value systems and political identities and is emphasized relentlessly by the Biden Administration and certain members of the media.

More from Sartwell:

“It is bewildering to receive changing and conflicting information from experts.  But it also shows some things about our fundamental situation as creatures that have to believe and act without omniscience.  Nothing, not even the experts, can relieve you of the burden of deciding what to believe. Even if all you want to do is believe whatever the experts say, that is itself a decision.  Then you’ve got to decide who is an expert and which experts to believe.”

For my part, at least when it comes to politics, I make my own decisions after reading several newspapers every day – and I do so as a former journalist who values both good writing and solid opinions, not to mention newspapers in general.

From the center-left, I read the Washington Post.  From the center-right, I read the Wall Street Journal.  Then, along with discussions with my smart wife, I try to land somewhere.

Nowhere was so-called “expert” advice more confusing than over the last couple days as President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel spared over voting rights issues in this country.

Here are excerpts of what Biden said in Georgia:

“You know, for the right to vote and to have that vote counted is democracy’s threshold liberty.  Without it, nothing is possible, but with it, anything is possible.

“But while the denial of fair and free elections is un-democratic, it is not unprecedented.

“Black Americans were denied full citizenship and voting rights until 1965.  Women were denied the right to vote until just 100 years ago.  The United States Supreme Court, in recent years, has weakened the Voting Rights Act.  And now the defeated former president and his supporters use the Big Lie about the 2020 election to fuel torrent and torment and anti-voting laws — new laws designed to suppress your vote, to subvert our elections.

“Here in Georgia, for years, you’ve done the hard work of democracy: Registering voters, educating voters, getting voters to the polls.  You’ve built a broad coalition of voters:  Black, white, Latino, Asian American, urban, suburban, rural, working class, and middle class. 

“And it’s worked:  You’ve changed the state by bringing more people, legally, to the polls.  You did it — you did it the right way, the democratic way.

“And what’s been the reaction of Republicans in Georgia?  Choose the wrong way, the un-democratic way.  To them, too many people voting in a democracy is a problem.  So they’re putting up obstacles.”

Well, Biden sounded logical and forthright, as well as conscious of history.

But not to McConnell.

In just a few hours, he took to the floor of the Senate to deliver what Washington Post columnist Peggy Noonan called a “stinging rebuke, indignant to the point of seething.  He didn’t attempt to scale any rhetorical heights.  The plainness of his language was ferocious.

“Biden’s speech, McConnell said, “was profoundly unpresidential, deliberately divisive, and designed to pull our country further apart.  I have known, liked and personally respected Joe Biden for many years.  I did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday.

“Biden had entered office calling on Americans to stop the shouting and lower the temperature. Yesterday, he called millions of Americans his domestic ‘enemies.’ That, a week after he gave a January 6th lecture about not stoking political violence.”

I could add more to what both Biden and McConnell said in their war of words, but I will demur.  So, whom do you believe?

I don’t know.  What would be required is a detailed analysis, word-by-word, of the new Georgia law to make an independent judgement between accuracy and rhetoric.

For my part, I might engage in that kind of research, but have not done so yet, so I am still in the process of deciding my own views between the “experts.”

And, to underline an overriding concern, it’s only one examples these days of political point/counter point amidst the reality that disagreement is not the goal, not one part of reaching a consensus.

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 of 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.

Consider this to be a bit of a respite from never-ending stories about the omicron virus.

Or, consider what follows to be mostly irrelevant.

And, to achieve this, forgive me for writing about myself. 

Rather than big thoughts this morning, I have remembered when my colleagues and I achieved “firsts” during my professional career.

For some reason, I thought of these firsts as I waited to go to sleep – and, you might add, thinking of this kind of stuff should produce sleep.

So, here goes.

IN CONGRESS:  When I worked in a congressional office 40 years ago, ours was the first to acquire a Wang Word Processing System.

That is significant because the office of Oregon Congressman Les AuCoin was one of 435 such offices in the U.S. House.  So being first meant something.

Of course, as we obtained the Wang system, we had no idea how to operate it, but, in short order, figured out at least one huge benefit:  As we wrote letters for the congressman’s signature, we no longer had to use multiple pieces of paper and carbon paper and, if we made a typing mistake, all we had to do was delete it and move on.

No more hard erases on the paper and the carbon.

For us, that was huge as we cranked out hundreds of letters every day, not to mention the media releases I wrote as the congressman’s press secretary.

Today, of course, there are no more Wang Word Processing systems, having been replaced by many other more capable machines.

IN OREGON STATE GOVERNMENT:  When I came home from Washington, D.C., I moved into a management position at the then-Department of Human Resources, an umbrella agency that is no more.

In the director’s office of the agency, we were the first state employees to be given individual computers, albeit ones that stood on our desks, not a laptop such as I am using to produce this blog. 

Having computers made our work much easier.  Today, many years later, almost every state employee has a computer.

IN THE LOBBYING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM WHERE I WAS A PARTNER:  The achievement here was to acquire “blackberries.”  Remember those small machines?

The worth of them for us was that, wherever we were, we could view e-mail messages from clients.  If we were walking around the Capitol to meet with legislators, no problem – we had easy access to e-mails.  If we were out to lunch with a legislator, again no problem — we had e-mail access. 

And, for me, if I was on the golf course, where I did some of my lobbying work, I was still connected.

Consider the change today.  All of us have phones that give us all kinds of messages on the go, including e-mails and texts, not to mention just the routine phone calls.

Speaking of blackberries, did you notice this story last week?  Blackberry devices running the original operating system and services will no longer be supported, marking the end of an era for the storied device that catapulted work into the mobile era.

The story said this:

“Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry Ltd., the company formerly known as Research In Motion whose signature handset in the 1990s came to embody working on the move, said handsets running its in-house software ‘will no longer be expected to reliably function’ after Tuesday, according to its end-of-life page.”

In all these firsts, do I think of myself as a leader?  No.  At least not alone.  Only in this regard.  In each of the examples above, I worked with colleagues and, together, we were able to plow new technology to make our work better.

Note the word together.  Good stuff like this doesn’t result from the work of one person; it results from a team effort.

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 of 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.

“You don’t have to like it.  Just do it.”

That was a quote from my late father.  And, if you asked any of my four siblings for one of my father’s favorite sayings, they likely would come up with this one.

I clarify that my father was a great, positive influence on my life and, the quote above does not do him justice for his role in bringing up five children, including me.  I remember him fondly every day.

Still, the quote resonated with me this weekend as I thought again about the virus that plagues us.

The solution?  Get vaccinated.

Simple.  Yet, so controversial.

“You don’t have to like it.  Just do it.”

Finding health care policy equilibrium rests both on medical statistics and on public perceptions. Doing so involves three groups in society:

• The largest group is the fully vaccinated. For most of us, the new variant is a serious nuisance, like an especially virile flu, but not much more than that.  It’s unpleasant (I know, because I have it), but, if this were the version of covid that hit everyone who got infected in 2020, no school or business would have closed.
• The second group is the immune-compromised, even if they are vaccinated — including people with underlying conditions and the elderly. The risk to them remains high, and the extra care they have to take can be isolating.  But that’s the case with every contagion, including the flu.  We don’t re-order the society around it.
• The third group is, of course, the unvaccinated. (I’m not including children under 5, who are still not eligible for a coronavirus vaccine.) Unvaccinated persons have now had a year to absorb all warnings and weigh all the arguments.  They’ve seen high-profile vaccine deniers — talk show hosts, Trumpian candidates — needlessly dying from a virus they chose to exploit.

The unvaccinated are like unrepentant smokers.  The U.S. has spent decades telling smokers they might get lung cancer.  We’ve plastered warnings everywhere.  Still, many persist.

To move citizens from group #3 to group #1 above, all that’s necessary is for everyone to heed my father’s axiom:  “You don’t have to like it.  Just do it.”

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 of 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, remember, is one of three departments to run with a free hand to manage as I wish.  Not unlike a dictator.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.

A NEW GOLF COURSE IN OREGON:  It’s called Bar Run and it will be in Roseburg.

“Just Saying,” why doesn’t the architect, Dan Hixson, get more credit for what is reported to be another fine piece of work.

A former pro at the Columbia Edgewater course in Portland, Hixson has been working as a golf architect for several years now.  You wouldn’t know it by the lack of publicity he receives.

Here’s how Links Magazine described the new course:

Bar Run Golf (Roseburg, Oregon)

Oregon’s newest golf offering is a reclamation project built on a sand and gravel mine along the South Umpqua River, about 75 miles south of Eugene and 85 miles inland from Bandon Dunes. The first 10 holes from Pacific Northwest native Dan Hixson opened this year, yielding a delightful mix of memorable design in a natural and rustic setting—one in which daily mining activities continue just beyond the course confines. The full 18-hole layout is expected to be open by summer of 2022.

Hixson is a good guy who often helps existing golf courses in Oregon engage in upgrades.  Such was the case at my home course in Oregon, Illahe Hills, where Hixson worked with us to re-do more than 80 bunkers on the course.

The re-design was very well done, though, of course, if you are a golfer, you still want to avoid the bunkers he re-designed.

He also has designed the Silvies Ranch development near Burns in Eastern Oregon and Bandon Crossing in Coos Bay, just across the street from the Bandon Dunes bank of courses.

REPUBLICANS MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN TRUTH AND TRUMP:  That was the point Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney made the other day as she continued to function as one of the only Republican members of the U.S. House willing to raise questions about Trump’s conduct.

“Just Saying,” her question is exactly on target. 

“Our party has to choose,” Cheney told CBS’s Face the Nation. “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the constitution, but we cannot be both.”  She also said there are “potential criminal statutes at issue here, but I think that there’s absolutely no question that it (the January 6, 2021 attack) was a dereliction of duty.”

I choose truth over Trump.

BACK TO GOLF FOR JUST A MOMENT:  Why are “closest to the pin” shots on par 3 golf holes called “KPs?” 

“Just Saying,” good question.  Shouldn’t it be CPs?