This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
I open this department, one of five I run as a very competent manager, to cite three very good quotes.
The other departments I run are the Department of Words Matter, the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of “Just Saying,” and the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to know.
So, for the good quotes.
FROM COLUMNIST FRANK BRUNI IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: “In terms of optics and in terms of energy, I wish President Biden were younger. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.
“And from the casual conversations all around me and the formal polling of voters, I know I’m in robust company. A great many Americans consider his age unideal, and that belief is why there’s no wishing away the focus on it. The swell of attention to it over the past few months is more beginning than end. There are tsunamis yet to come.
“Even so, aspects of the subject get too little consideration, starting with this crushingly obvious and yet frequently overlooked fact: The presidency isn’t a solo mission. Not even close. It’s a team effort, and the administration that a president puts together matters much, much more than his brawn or his brio.”
COMMENT: Bruni is right on. The presidency is not a “solo mission” and I would rather have Joe Biden in charge of appointments than Donald Trump. Given Trump’s previous track record, he would appoint scofflaws like Rudy Guilani! Biden won’t.
FROM COLUMNIST JAMELLE BOUIE, ALSO IN THE TIMES: “As the week began, it looked as though Donald Trump would finally face consequences — or at least, a consequence — for his actions.
“Last month, a New York state trial court found the former president liable for inflating his net worth and misleading banks and insurers in order to receive favorable loans for his various businesses and commercial enterprises.
“The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, imposed a penalty of $454 million, to be paid into the state’s general fund. Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, gave Trump a 30-day grace period to secure bond as he pursued appeal of the judgment. ‘If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,’ James said last month.
“As of Sunday, Trump did not have the funds lined up. He could not find a company willing to pledge nearly half a billion dollars on his behalf. And even if he could, he would need to pledge at least as much in collateral to the company.
“Almost any other defendant would have to face the consequences of coming to court empty-handed. On Monday, the day the money was due, a New York appeals court said that it would accept a far smaller bond of $175 million, a significant and unexpected victory for the former president. He has 10 days to pay.”
COMMENT: Again, Trump gets away without consequences for his alleged actions. I wish it wasn’t so.
AND MORE FROM THE TIMES: “The news that NBC had hired and then abruptly cut ties with the former Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel this week may feel like a flashback for TV insiders and viewers.
“Once again, a major news network is on the defensive over an attempt to balance out its ranks of talking heads — a mainstay of the genre — with a pro-Trump surrogate whose qualifications for the role appeared to run counter to the basic tenets of journalism.
“McDaniel, after all, had been a prominent exponent of the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. McDaniel was also at times involved in Trump’s attempts to stave off the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
“While the crack-up may seem as if it was inevitable in retrospect, it was also reflective of a hallmark of the Trump era: After two impeachments, a Capitol riot and numerous criminal indictments, the question of how to cover Trump is no closer to being solved.”
COMMENT: The Times has it right. The question of how journalists cover Trump is not being solved.
To that, as a former journalist myself, I add this: Journalists need to remember that Trump not only acted a lot like Hitler in his first term as president, he values Hitler now.
Trump wants to be a dictator in the spirit of Hitler. Presiding over killing people – especially migrants looking for a better life – doesn’t bother him at all.
As Hitler rose to power after the first World War, I wonder if journalists thought about their rule in covering him as a dictator. Probably not because they lived at the time, with no benefit of hindsight.
Tough for journalists in this country, as well, and they have not found their footing yet. A difference is that today’s journalist don’t need hindsight. They have all the information they need given how Trump conducted himself in his first trip through the Oval Office. And, of course, they have all of Trump’s fulminations, which focus on dishonesty and selfish ambitions.
The Ronna McDaniel issue is only the tip of the iceberg. Better for wise journalists – yes, there are some left – to decide new ways of covering trip before we go under as a nation.
Perspective from the 19th Hole 