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.

Say what you will about Republican political operative Karl Rove, every once in awhile he makes a good point as he writes a column for the Wall Street Journal.

Today was one of those days.

In a column excoriating Democrat Congressional Campaign Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney for contending that Democrats can continue controlling the U.S. House in the next election, Rove wrote this:

“One large factor could help Democrats, though it’s unlikely to sustain their majority.  Maloney was directionally correct in February when he pooh-poohed GOP chances saying, ‘They have no more ideas.’

“To maximize their gains, Republican candidates must prove him wrong by each offering their agenda and explaining what they’re for with as much passion as they describe what they’re against.  They must make the mid-term about future possibilities, not past grievances.  That should be obvious, but in today’s GOP, it isn’t.

“Republicans have the opportunity to put forward a positive governing agenda, focused on the economy and values.  They’re the only thing in the way of that agenda’s creation and the GOP victory that would follow.”

Otherwise, Rove contended that Republicans will re-take the House as they capitalize on six factors he contended work against House Democrats.  His naming of the six:

• First, history.  Democrats hold the House narrowly, 220-212.  Since the emergence of America’s two-party system in the mid-1820s, there have been 36 first mid-term elections.  In only two has the president’s party gained House seats—1934 and 2002.  Take any starting point and it’s the same story:  Since World War II, the party controlling the White House has lost an average of 28 seats in its first midterm; since 1900, 32; since the mid-1820s, 34.
• Second, the nature of mid-term elections. They’re inevitably referendums on the Administration’s conduct.  Voter expectations, even after a close election, are higher than most presidents can meet.  Even if many voters are happy, the discontented and disappointed disproportionately turn out.
• Third, redistricting. Republicans control that process in states with 187 House seats, to only 75 for Democrats.  The other 173 seats are in states with a single member or where power to define districts is split between the parties or vested in an independent commission.  Even as each party uses its power to maximize its advantage, redistricting alone could give the GOP the handful of seats it needs to control the House.
• Fourth, the Democrats’ internal war.  The rift between Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more-traditional liberal and centrist Democrats is widening.  Issues, events, personalities, showboating and primaries will aggravate matters.
• Fifth, it’s hard to imagine President Joe Biden effectively barnstorming key battlegrounds next year, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s substantially less popular than he is, can’t fill that gap.  Both are plodding, one might even say boring, campaigners.
• Finally, the ground was not well prepared for this ambitious Democrat agenda.  Voters don’t like expensive surprises.  Swing voters, in particular, appear to be put off by the price tag and vast expansion of federal power.  The more they hear about Biden’s agenda, the less they probably like it.

It’s far too early to tell if Rove is right in his calculus, though he still apparently spends much of his time reading the tea leaves of polling.  And, of course, by his past and current perspectives, he almost always veers right.

But the point I made earlier in this blog resonates.  It’s better for politicians who want to lead the nation to be for something, not just against everything.

Give voters proposals to consider, not just the “no.”

And that applies both to Republicans and to 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.

…I wish there would be a move to hold the Olympics in the same place every time it occurs.

So, here I go again.  Writing about something about which I don’t know much.  That’s my style.  But it does not divert me from offering an opinion, however personal it may be.

I write today about the Olympics just as we have seen the most recent version end after being very difficult to run, given Covid.

My sense is that finding a singular location for the games – actually two if you count both the summer and winter events — would save loads of money, as well link the Olympics to its history in Greece, at least for the summer version.

Here is the way the Wall Street Journal wrote about the issue in an in-my-opinion piece that appeared under this headline:

Move the Olympics to Athens—Forever

Why not eliminate the selection process that feeds nationalism?

A retired U.S. Navy admiral, James Stavridis, started his opinion piece this way:

“I’m a proud Greek-American, and the Olympics have a special place in my heart.  Every couple of years, the world is treated to a spectacular display of athletic ability in summer and winter formats at a carefully selected national venue.

“The athletes embody a fine quality of ‘olympism,’ as they strive to live up to the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect.  The Olympic website is full of messages about how the games bring nations together in fair and open athletic competition.

“But the games have all too often become overt displays of odious propaganda (the 1936 games were put on by the Nazi regime in Berlin) or the setting for fierce geopolitical arguments, such as when the U.S. and other Western nations boycotted the 1980 games after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.”

The next Olympics, the winter version in Beijing in 2022 stands to be another version of politics over athletics, especially as the regressive regime in China silences dissent in a bid to move forward no matter the cost.

It is true that nations often fight hard to host the games, believing that, beyond the games themselves, there is a supposed financial benefit.  Still, those benefits seldom seem to materialize, at least in the predicted proportions.

“Moving the games,” Stavridis adds, “is also an opportunity to show soft power to allies, partners, friends and send a message to opponents.  Winning the venue often feeds virulent nationalism that runs counter to Olympic ideals.  The frequent corruption associated with the selection process doesn’t help.”

A solution, according to Stavridis, “would be to construct a pair of Olympic facilities, one for summer and the other for winter, which could be used every two years permanently.  The expense for the construction and subsequent maintenance of the global facility could be shared among participating nations as a percentage of their economy with respect to global gross domestic product.”

But where to put such global Olympic homes?  

For the winter, it would be possible to consider St. Moritz, Switzerland, which has hosted the Olympics twice, in 1928 and 1948, and is a recognized center of international skiing.  The Swiss are organized and efficient.  Switzerland is known for its political neutrality and has a reputation as a reliable, sensible international actor.

The obvious selection for summer could be Greece.  After all, the Greeks invented the games.  Like the Swiss, the Greeks have twice hosted the games, in the summers of 1896 and 2004.  Greece is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a close friend of the U.S., but the Greeks also have relatively good relationships with Russia and China.

Stavridis concludes:  “There are many other potential venues, and all of this would require significant negotiation.  But it would be worth it to end the expensive and controversial selection process.  Above all, a fixed location would eliminate some of the nationalism and propaganda that detract from the true purpose of the games.”

Points worth considering, I think.  And I say this only as a fan of many Olympic events.  Let’s make the event about the athletics, not politics and propaganda.

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.

…I wish there would be a move to hold the Olympics in the same place every time it occurs.

So, here I go again.  Writing about something about which I don’t know much.  That’s my style.  But it does not divert me from offering an opinion, however personal it may be.

I write today about the Olympics just as we have seen the most recent version end after being very difficult to run, given Covid.

My sense is that finding a singular location for the games – actually two if you count both the summer and winter events — would save loads of money, as well link the Olympics to its history in Greece, at least for the summer version.

Here is the way the Wall Street Journal wrote about the issue in an in-my-opinion piece that appeared under this headline:

Move the Olympics to Athens—Forever

Why not eliminate the selection process that feeds nationalism?

A retired U.S. Navy admiral, James Stavridis, started his opinion piece this way:

“I’m a proud Greek-American, and the Olympics have a special place in my heart.  Every couple of years, the world is treated to a spectacular display of athletic ability in summer and winter formats at a carefully selected national venue.

“The athletes embody a fine quality of ‘olympism,’ as they strive to live up to the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect.  The Olympic website is full of messages about how the games bring nations together in fair and open athletic competition.

“But the games have all too often become overt displays of odious propaganda (the 1936 games were put on by the Nazi regime in Berlin) or the setting for fierce geopolitical arguments, such as when the U.S. and other Western nations boycotted the 1980 games after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.”

It is true that nations often fight hard to host the games, believing that, beyond the games themselves, there is a supposed financial benefit.  Still, those benefits seldom seem to materialize, at least in the predicted proportions.

“Moving the games,” Stavridis adds, “is also an opportunity to show soft power to allies, partners, friends and send a message to opponents.  Winning the venue often feeds virulent nationalism that runs counter to Olympic ideals.  The frequent corruption associated with the selection process doesn’t help.”

A solution, according to Stavridis, “would be to construct a pair of Olympic facilities, one for summer and the other for winter, which could be used every two years permanently.  The expense for the construction and subsequent maintenance of the global facility could be shared among participating nations as a percentage of their economy with respect to global gross domestic product.”

But where to put such global Olympic homes?  

For the winter, it would be possible to consider St. Moritz, Switzerland, which has hosted the Olympics twice, in 1928 and 1948, and is a recognized center of international skiing.  The Swiss are organized and efficient.  Switzerland is known for its political neutrality and has a reputation as a reliable, sensible international actor.

The obvious selection for summer would be Greece.  After all, the Greeks invented the games.  Like the Swiss, the Greeks have twice hosted the games, in the summers of 1896 and 2004.  Greece is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a close friend of the U.S., but the Greeks also have relatively good relationships with Russia and China.

Stavridis concludes:  “There are many other potential venues, and all of this would require significant negotiation.  But it would be worth it to end the expensive and controversial selection process.  Above all, a fixed location would eliminate some of the nationalism and propaganda that detract from the true purpose of the games.”

Points worth considering, I think.  And I say this only as a fan of many Olympic events.  Let’s make the event about the athletics, not politics and propaganda.

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 “paid for” question arises as Congress continues debating the huge infrastructure bill advocated President Joseph Biden, many Congressional Democrats, and a few Republicans.

The Wall Street Journal, perhaps a bit predictably, showed up with an editorial questioning whether the deal really was paid for.  The editorial appeared under this headline:

SO MUCH FOR ‘FULLY PAID FOR’

The infrastructure bill’s financing is full of gimmicks, as expected.

Here are a few paragraphs from the editorial:

“One claim about the Senate’s infrastructure bill is that it would be, as the authors said, ‘fully paid for.’  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) rudely blew apart that myth on Thursday, not that the authors seem to care.

“CBO’s budget gnomes found that the $1 trillion spending bill will add $256 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years.  But it’s worse than that. CBO also explained that the bill will increase the government’s contract authority by an additional $196 billion over the 2021 budget baseline. The estimate is complex, but the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculates the mix of costs and savings will result in nearly $400 billion in deficit spending over a decade.

“A couple of examples highlight the fiscal flim-flam. The bi-partisan group of senators tried to claim as ‘savings’ some $53 billion in unemployment benefits that states won’t spend as anticipated.  But CBO notes that the ‘lower outlays had already been counted in its baseline and so don’t now amount to a ‘reduction in spending.’

“CBO also didn’t credit $106 billion in supposedly unused Covid paid- and family-leave tax credits, and only a portion of what senators claimed were $67 billion in savings from a Covid employer tax credit.  Of the $210 billion of ‘unused’ Covid funds senators ultimately claimed they were ‘re-purposing,’ CBO gave them credit for about $21 billion.”

You get the picture.  More budget shenanigans.

At the same time, there are those who will say it is past time for the federal government to invest in improved infrastructure – and I am one of who supports such investments, for that is what they are, investments.  That’s if, by infrastructure, you mean typical investments in roads, bridges and the like.  If you go beyond that definition, then you should not call it infrastructure; you should call it something else, whatever it is.  Then, let that spending rise or fall on its merits or demerits.

Of course, that’s not what happens at the federal government.  Games are played with numbers and definitions.

I have said this before – aside from war-time spending or spending to avert a recession (which should stand on their own), I wish federal spending proposals would subscribe to more rational, transparent criteria. 

Too much to ask, you say.  Perhaps.  But the expenditure of time, effort and energy – if done in the name of transparency – would result in better government.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  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.

I have written about this before, but what still stands out for me, as a dedicated golfer, is one of the strangest golf rules on the planet.

It is Golf Rule #12 in the lexicon of rules promulgated jointly by the United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal & Ancient (R & I) organization overseas.

So, what is Golf Rule #12?

It deals with bunkers, those conditions on a golf course that, usually, you want to avoid.  They are sand-filled holes in the ground.  Golf pros appear not to mind being in those contraptions.  Neither do top-level amateurs. 

But the rest of us?  Me included.  Avoid them.

Incredibly, here is what the Rule #12 allows in bunkers:

• Digging in with your feet to take a stance for a practice swing or the stroke,
• Smoothing the bunker to care for the course,

• Placing your clubs, equipment or other objects in the bunker (whether by throwing or setting them down),
• Measuring, marking, lifting, replacing or taking other actions under a rule,
• Leaning on a club to rest, stay balanced or prevent a fall, or
• Striking the sand in frustration or anger.

Consider just the latter.  “Striking the sand in frustration or anger” is acceptable!

But, if you were in Oregon playing in a tournament organized by the Oregon Golf Association and you were seen “striking the sand in frustration or anger,” you would likely receive a “code of conduct” penalty.  And you should.

Why writers of the still new golf rules chose to propose Rule #12 is beyond me.  And, if nothing else, the objectionable parts of the rule should be thrown out or the entire rule re-written.

For now, my objective is not to think about this strange rule and, further, to avoid getting into the contraptions.

And this postscript:  According to Oregon Golf Association (OGA) rules experts, Pete Scholz and Terry McEvily (they join to write a rules summary for each OGA newsletter), the following also is true:

“Provided the ball is not in the same bunker, a player may take practice swings that touch the sand, even if they test the conditions of a different bunker.”

Without the sage advice of Pete and Terry, I would not have known that this was allowed.

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.

I wrote the other day about the fact that, surprisingly, in Oregon, health care employers don’t have the legal ability to require their workers to get vaccinated.

The culprit is a 30-year-old law that has nothing to do with Covid, but still has an incredibly terrible effect – health care workers that you and I see might not be vaccinated.

Late news is that a couple of Oregon’s largest private health care systems – Kaiser and Oregon & Sciences University — are bucking the state law by requiring their health care workers to get the vaccine.  

And, even later news is that, under the headline below, the Oregonian newspaper reports that Governor Kate Brown has taken action to require health care workers to submit to weekly Covid tests or be vaccinated.  In other words, it is a vaccine mandate through, first, a required Covid test.

Here is the headline and several paragraphs from the story:

Oregon health care workers must get COVID-19 shots or submit to weekly testing, governor says

“Oregon health care workers will have to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or face weekly testing, Governor Kate Brown’s office said, in an apparent step to fight the state’s run-away coronavirus case numbers fueled by the delta variant.

“The move comes amid a nationwide push to drive up vaccination rates, both for the general public and among health care workers in particular. Brown’s intervention effectively neutralizes an Oregon law that says employers can’t fire health care workers for not being vaccinated.

“Brown’s order, through the Oregon Health Authority, sidesteps the law by mandating weekly testing while allowing for an exemption from the requirement for those who can prove they’ve been immunized.

“This new safety measure is necessary to stop delta from causing severe illness among our first line of defense: our doctors, nurses, medical students, and frontline health care workers,” Brown said in a statement announcing the change. “Severe illness from COVID-19 is now largely preventable, and vaccination is clearly our best defense.”

[I add that it also would give me solace when I visit a clinic or another health care provider and see health care workers.]

“Brown’s move comes less than three weeks after The Oregonian/OregonLive highlighted the unique problems Oregon’s health care system and patients face due to an obscure law dating to 1989, which prohibits those systems from requiring vaccinations among employees and firing those who refuse. 

“Oregon appears to be the only state in the nation with the prohibition specifically for health care workers, and one of the sponsors of the bill was perplexed by the ramifications, saying, ‘Why the hell did we do that?’

“’Scrutiny of the law came too late for lawmakers to act this year,’ said Representative Lisa Reynolds, D-Portland, who has said she believes it should be changed.”

It is likely that the Legislature, in its short-session in February, will set out to change the 30-year-old law.

The probable action will occur against a backdrop of various companies enacting vaccine mandates, as in these three examples:

• CNN has fired three staff members for working in the office despite being unvaccinated against the coronavirus, in an incident that highlights the potential challenges facing employers who mandate inoculations amid a surge of the highly transmissible delta variant in the United States.
• United Airlines will require employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, the company announced Friday, becoming the first domestic airline to require the vaccine as a condition of employment.  The company’s mandate will apply to all 67,000 of its active, U.S.-based employees, the company said.
• A virus outbreak helped spur Good Samaritan, a system operating facilities for senior citizens in 22 states, to impose a vaccine mandate on its 16,000 staff members. 

Back to Oregon.  It will be interesting to see how health care unions and other interests in Oregon react to a vaccine mandate carved into Oregon law if one is proposed by legislators early next year.

For me, employee survival, if not vitality, is on the side of a mandate.  That should be enough to support it.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  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.

Yes, Congress – at least the U.S. House – is going to investigate what happened on that fateful day, January 6, early this year.

The process started last week and, no surprise here, Republican leaders in the House panned the effort.  They pulled all of their members off the panel created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, though Pelosi upstaged her minority counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, by naming two Republicans to the review committee.

Capitol security personal appeared before the committee and presented an emotional description of what happened on January 6. 

There is no better way to report about all this than to reprint a column by Leonard Pitts, who writes for the Miami Herald and other newspapers.  So,

*********

It’s not that we forget.

But sooner or later, news becomes history, and the awful thing that happened loses its power to shock. You remember the emotions you felt, but you don’t re-experience them, not to any degree of sharpness or immediacy.

One day, that will happen to the events of January 6. One day, as was the case with December 7 and November 22, that day will primarily be one of remembered pain.  But as Tuesday’s hearing into the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol vividly proved, today is not that day.

To the contrary, as four of the police officers who defended the Capitol testified in the opening session of a House select committee, the events of that day rushed back, hard.  As they spoke of being cursed and beaten and gassed and Tased and crushed by white nationalists seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the pain felt fresh, new and now.  To put it another way:  Tuesday was January 6.  One suspects that, as hearings continue, that day is destined to come around often.

This is as it should be.  Moreover, as it needs to be.

The GOP, which cannot bring itself to cut Donald Trump loose, even knowing he lost the election and that his refusal to accept it led directly to this violence, has only compounded its sin in the six months since.  It has waged war on memory, effectively asking us to believe Republican lies over the testimony of our own eyes.

They tell us the insurrectionists were tourists, and “loving” and “peaceful patriots.”  They tell us Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was shot to death trying to breach a space where members of Congress were being evacuated, is some kind of martyr.  They tell us House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blame for Trump’s insurrection.  Like she’s the one who whipped up the crowd. Like it was her name on the flags they carried.

It is hogwash, yes, but hogwash in the service of obfuscation, of rushing January 6 off into history — misremembered history, at that.  Which is what made the testimony of those four cops so critical.  Because while the deniers may deny many things, you cannot deny the stark moral clarity of a cop who tells you he was not as frightened in Iraq as he was in Washington, a cop who couldn’t hug his wife when he got home at 4 a.m. because his uniform was saturated with chemical irritants, a cop who got called “n—-r” so many times he found himself in the Capitol rotunda afterward demanding aloud, “Is this America?,” a cop who told himself, “This is how I’m going to die.”

You can’t deny that.  It is an everlasting stain upon them that so many Republicans have tried.  As Officer Michael Fanone of the DC Metropolitan Police Department, still recovering from a concussion, traumatic brain injury, PTSD and a heart attack, told the committee, “What makes the struggle harder and more painful, is to know so many of . . . the people I put my life at risk to defend are downplaying or outright denying what happened. I went to hell and back to protect them . . . but too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad.

“The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he declared.  His voice rose angrily as he pounded the table.

Trump and his enablers have never seemed smaller than they did Tuesday. Not just small, but revealed, caught red-handed in high crimes against democracy.  They’ve been trying to murder memory.

On Tuesday, memory fought back.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  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.

Have you noticed all of the “new hiring” signs lately?

They are everywhere.

• On the backs of semi-trucks making their way up and down the highway.

• On billboards on those highways.

• On the sides of work trucks in my neighborhood.

• On the lawns of employers in our area.

You get the point.

Hiring is going on around us.  Well, at  least advertising for jobs is.  Who knows if those jobs get filled?

Here’s quick summary of national statistics.

“Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 850,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 5.9 per cent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, public and private education, professional and business services, retail trade, and other services.”

So, the economy is percolating and unemployment is holding steady, if not going down.

There are always economic uncertainties on the horizon, but, for me, one bottom line is:  I wish some of those persons who don’t have jobs these days would apply for openings and gain employment, which is one of the best social programs available.  Better, for example, than being homeless.

I know that may be a bit simplistic if folks face certain challenges, including mental health issues and lack of training.  But, in some cases, the jobs are there without specific training requirements.  Learning on the job can occur.

If unemployment was rising, that would be a different problem.  It is not, so I say, get a job.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  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.

As a former newspaper reporter, I read with interest a column by Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post.

Using sharp and effective language, she argued for actions that will be, (a) difficult for reporters and their bosses to achieve in the real, every-day world of reporting, and (b) require changing basic notions of how journalists cover issues in a society marked by more division and dissention than we ever have seen.

Sullivan’s story appeared under this headline:

Our democracy is under attack:  Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual

I could write about what she advises, but better, I think, to run her own words as my blog for today.

Back in the dark ages of 2012, two think-tank scholars, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, wrote a book titled “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” about the rise of Republican Party extremism and its dire effect on American democracy.

In a related op-ed piece, these writers made a damning statement about Washington press coverage, which treats the two parties as roughly equal and everything they do as deserving of similar coverage.

Ornstein and Mann didn’t use the now-in-vogue terms “both-sidesism” or “false equivalence,” but they laid out the problem with devastating clarity (the italics are mine):

“We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change any time soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.”

Nearly a decade later, this distortion of reality has only grown worse, thanks in part to Donald Trump’s rise to power and his ironclad grip on an increasingly craven Republican Party.

Positive proof was in the recent coverage of congressional efforts to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

The Democrat leadership has been trying to assemble a bipartisan panel that would study that mob attack on our democracy and make sure it is never repeated. Republican leaders, meanwhile, have been trying to undermine the investigation, cynically requesting that two congressmen who backed efforts to invalidate the election be allowed to join the commission, then boycotting it entirely. And the media has played straight into Republicans’ hands, seemingly incapable of framing this as anything but base political drama.

“ ‘What You’re Doing Is Unprecedented’: McCarthy-Pelosi Feud Boils Over,” read a CNN headline this week. “After a whiplash week of power plays . . . tensions are at an all-time high.”

Is it really a “feud” when Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy performatively blames Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to seat Republicans Jim Jordan and Jim Banks — two sycophantic allies of Trump, who called the Jan. 6 mob to gather?

One writer at Politico called Pelosi’s decision a “gift to McCarthy.” And its Playbook tut-tutted the decision as handing Republicans “a legitimate grievance,” thus dooming the holy notion of bipartisanship.

“Both parties have attacked the other as insincere and uninterested in conducting a fair-minded examination,” a Washington Post news story observed. (“Can it really be lost on the Post that the Republican party has acted in bad faith at every turn to undermine every attempt to investigate the events of Jan. 6?” a reader complained to me.)

The bankruptcy of this sort of coverage was exposed on Tuesday morning, when the January 6 commission kicked off with somber, powerful, pointedly nonpolitical testimony from four police officers who were attacked during the insurrection. Two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, even defied McCarthy’s boycott to ensure their party would be sanely represented.

This strain of news coverage, observed Jon Allsop in Columbia Journalism Review, centers on twinned, dubious implications: “That bipartisanship is desirable and that Democrats bear responsibility for upholding it — even in the face of explicit Republican obstructionism.”

This stance comes across as both cynical (“politics was ever thus”) and unsophisticated (“we’re just doing our job of reporting what was said”). Quite a feat.

Mainstream journalists want their work to be perceived as fair-minded and nonpartisan. They want to defend themselves against charges of bias. So they equalize the unequal. This practice seems so ingrained as to be unresolvable.

There is a way out. But it requires the leadership of news organizations to radically reframe the mission of its Washington coverage. As a possible starting point, I’ll offer these recommendations:

• Toss out the insidious “inside-politics” frame and replace it with a “pro-democracy” frame.
• Stop calling the reporters who cover this stuff “political reporters.” Start calling them “government reporters.”
• Stop asking who the winners and losers were in the latest skirmish. Start asking who is serving the democracy and who is undermining it.
• Stop being “savvy” and start being patriotic.

In a year-end piece for Nieman Lab, Andrew Donohue, managing editor of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal, called for news organizations to put reporters on a new-style “democracy beat” to focus on voting suppression and redistricting. “These reporters won’t see their work in terms of politics or parties, but instead through the lens of honesty, fairness, and transparency,” he wrote.

I’d make it more sweeping. The democracy beat shouldn’t be some kind of specialized innovation, but a widespread rethinking across the mainstream media.

Making this happen will call for something that Big Journalism is notoriously bad at: An open-minded, non-defensive recognition of what’s gone wrong.

Top editors, Sunday talk-show moderators and other news executives should pull together their brain trusts to grapple with this. And they should be transparent with the public about what they’re doing and why.

As a model, they might have to swallow their big-media pride and look to places like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, public radio station WITF which has admirably explained to its audience why it continually offers reminders about the actions of those public officials who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Or to Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn’s letter to readers about how the paper and its website, Cleveland.com, refuse to cover every reckless, attention-getting lie of Republican Josh Mandel as he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.

These places prove that a different kind of coverage, and transparency about it, is possible.

Is it unlikely that the most influential Sunday talk shows, the most powerful newspapers and cable networks, and the buzziest Beltway websites will change their stripes?

Maybe so. But, to return to Ornstein and Mann in 2012, it’s a necessity.

“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional,” they wrote.

They probably couldn’t have imagined the chaos that followed November’s election, the horrors of January 6, or what’s happened in the past few weeks.

The change they called for never happened. For the sake of American democracy, it’s now or never.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  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.

If I would have written that headline a few months ago, you probably would have said, no, that is not case.

But, it is the case.

Under a 32-year-old law, health care employers in Oregon are prevented from mandating vaccines for their workers.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration in Oregon is imposing a vaccine requirement for all of its health care workers.  The reason the VA can do so?  It is part of the federal government, not state government here, so the state’s anti-vaccine law does not apply.

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) pointed this out in an on-line news story this week.

By Amelia Templeton, Kate Davidson and Rob Manning, here is what it said:

“For more than 30 years, Oregon law has prevented employers from mandating vaccines for healthcare workers.  That’s left Oregon an outlier as more hospitals nationwide require vaccination. 

“The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it will require COVID-19 vaccinations for its front-line health care employees, including doctors, nurses, and dentists.  Employees will have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated and can get the shot for free at any VA facility.

“It makes the VA the first health care system in Oregon to require the vaccination,” the OPB story said.  “State law generally prevents such mandates for healthcare workers. The policy will apply to the VA Portland health care system and all of its facilities.”

Nationwide, many health care systems are making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for their workforces, as vaccination rates have stalled and the delta variant is leading to yet another surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

Oregon is the only state in the nation with the vaccine prohibition.

“Virtually any employer in Oregon can require employees to be vaccinated, but hospitals are prohibited from doing so,” according to Michael Cox, vice president of public affairs for the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.

“We’re urging state policymakers to lift the prohibition.”

The fact is that legislators, in the recently concluded legislative session, did not deal with the old Oregon law. 

The issue comes up in next February’s short legislative session, but it is not clear yet whether employee unions will take a position on the issue.  Often, they believe employees should retain choices about their behavior. 

So, why dos the vaccine ban exist in Oregon law?

Well, it’s an old story.

When asked about the issue by the Oregonian newspaper, former State Senator Wayne Fawbush put it bluntly:  “Now, why the hell did we do that?”  [In the spirit of full disclosure, I lobbied Fawbush when he was in the Legislature, though, in my memory, we did not deal with the vaccine issue.]

The exemption, he recalls, was tucked into a 1989 bill that focused predominantly on ensuring health care workers were informed if they were exposed to patients with infectious diseases, a particularly important issue at the time because of the HIV epidemic.

But records of the committee hearings make no mention of the vaccine exemption that’s become such a hot topic 32 years later.  

So, we have this conundrum.  Those of us who seek health care services during the pandemic cannot be sure that workers we see have been vaccinated.

Strange, but true.  And my hope is that the dissonance will prompt legislators next year to fix the outdated Oregon law.  No doubt, former Senator Fawbush agrees with me.