WORDS TO DESCRIBE THOSE WHO FOLLOW TRUMP BLINDLY

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.

In past blogs, I have used three words to describe those who follow Donald Trump blindly into what could only be called a political and governmental abyss.

Each is accurate.

Here are the words and their definitions:

• Minion/A follower or underling of a powerful person, especially a servile or unimportant one.

• Acolyte/An assistant or follower.

• Sycophant/A person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage.

Think of each of them and then, for example, consider House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.  He illustrates all three perfectly. 

So does Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Then, consider what Senator Lindsay Graham said over the weekend.  This, as reported by Washington Post writer Ruth Marcus – and she even labeled Graham accurately as an “acolyte.”

“Then, on Sunday, Trump acolyte Senator Lindsey O. Graham didn’t bother with the disingenuous niceties.  He went straight to the threat. ‘Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law.  It’s all about getting him.  And I’ll say this:  If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets.”

My hope that all four – Trump, McCarthy, Cruz and Graham, not to mention the rest of their ilk — fall into the abyss they have created.  They deserve it.

And, what’s the abyss?

It’s the make-believe political arena Trump and his minions, acolytes, and sycophants have created for themselves.  Only this group of narcissists, led by Trump, benefits.  That’s just the exactly the way they want it without any care about risks for the country, including that they raise the prospect of a civil war if they don’t get their way.

And, then, this from Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin as she anticipates President Joe Biden’s address to the nation on the eve the Labor Day start of the political season:

“Americans need to hear from Biden that all of this (the stuff from Trump and his acolytes, minions, and sycophants) is antithetical to democracy.  It is the stuff of fascist, authoritarian states.  And politicians — read: Republicans — who invoke violence against the FBI, the National Archives, or any American should be banished from public life.”

Agreed!

BRIEF THOUGHTS ABOUT A FIRST FOR ME – ATTENDING A COLLEGE REUNION

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.

It was a first for me. 

What?

Attending a college reunion.

With my wife, Nancy, I did so last weekend.  It was 50^th reunion for my graduation from Seattle Pacific College, now called Seattle Pacific University.  [She went along, though she graduated from the University of Oregon.]

Yes, it has been more than 50 years since I graduated in 1970, but like many other things these days, our reunion in 2020 was postponed due to the pandemic.

A few perceptions from attending this time around:

• I only knew about five people who were there from my class.  Two I did know – John Glancy, a long-time SPU guy who attended college with me, then worked for the institution for about 30 years, and Mel MacDonald, a great athlete back in my day who now sometimes plays pickle-ball with my son, Eric, in Palm Springs – were the ones who invited me by phone.  I agreed to attend.

• The program for the evening was long – too long – for anyone like me to pay much attention after about two hours.

• Before dinner, Nancy and I walked around the campus on a self-guided tour, but all the doors to buildings were closed and locked.  At least a few of them should have been open to us.

• For me, that included the office of The Falcon, the student newspaper I edited as a senior.  It would have been good to see the office and remember the hundreds of hours I spent there, toiling over the campus daily newspaper.

At dinner, I sat next to one of my friends from college days, Don Mortenson.  When I was a senior and he was a junior, we lived together in an off-campus apartment with two other guys.

He recalled a particular memory.  At our apartment, he said I would often get calls late at night or early in the morning from someone on “my” college newspaper staff wondering about, (a) how to write a story, (b) what to cover, or, (c) even, reporting about a typo in the paper after it had been printed.

On the latter, Don remembers that I often exclaimed in a loud voice, “Oh no, how did that happen?”  Well, I might have used harsher words.

Will I attend future reunions?  Probably not.

They are not my thing.

But not bad being there once, though I wish arrangements would have been a bit more welcoming for those of us who survived past 50 years from graduation – like open doors.

THE DEPARTMENT OF GOOD QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING IS OPEN AGAIN

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Remember, this is one of the three departments I run with a free hand to manage as a I see fit.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of “Just Saying.”

So today, as a towering management figure, I open the Good Quotes Department…again.

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “Administrators of school districts and public universities across the country will soon welcome thousands of new teachers and professors to orientation sessions.  And then those administrators will have to leave the room so unions can recruit new members.

“The on-boarding process has become a key battleground for the country’s government unions.  For decades, labor could count on collecting hundreds of millions of dollars annually from public employees from the moment they were hired.  Even workers who didn’t want to join had to pay special fees akin to union dues.  That changed in 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. Afscme that these involuntary payments violated the First Amendment.

“With the unions suddenly having to make the case for paying dues, access to new hires became crucial.  Some unions had already worked out deals to let their recruiters speak at orientation sessions, but plenty hadn’t. Sympathetic politicians responded by giving unions new privileges to help pressure workers into joining.  Lawmakers in New York provided unions “mandatory access” to orientations sessions, something management could previously deny.  Other states passed similar measures.  Central California’s Mariposa County made attendance for the union pitch mandatory.

“Unions are now taking things a step further:  Getting public employers to agree to let them speak to new hires without anyone from management present.  The New York City Department of Education, the nation’s largest public school system, has held official orientation events for new teachers at United Federation of Teachers headquarters since 2015.  But in 2018 the city agreed to let the union address new hires attending mandatory orientation “without any agent of the DOE present.”

COMMENT:  When the Janus decision came down, I celebrated.  Because public employee unions would have to compete for members and potential members would have the ability to say “yes, I join” or “no, I don’t join.”

In turn, that also would have meant that public employee unions wouldn’t have a guaranteed nest egg of money to make election contributions.

Now, it appears that unions, again, have found a way around the new law.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:  “If there’s one thing a top-notch grifter knows how to do, it’s exploit a crisis.

“So it is that Donald Trump has transformed the F.B.I.’s search of his Mar-a-Lago home from a potentially debilitating scandal into a political bonanza — one that threatens to further divide a twitchy, polarized nation.

“His formula for this alchemy?  The usual:  Playing on pre-existing grievances among his followers — in this case, the right’s bone-deep suspicion and resentment of federal authority.

“If you thought members of the MAGAverse were jacked up on Deep State conspiracy theories before, just wait until they spend several more weeks consuming the toxic spin-sanity that Trump and his enablers have been pushing out like black tar heroin.

“Once Trump donned his trusty cloak of victimhood, which by now must be threadbare from overuse, the Republican response to the search was predictable:  His base roared in outrage, a display of blind fealty featuring threats of lethal violence against their savior’s perceived persecutors.”

COMMENT:  This post was written by one of my new favorite cmmentators, Michelle Cottle. 

She gets Donald Trump just right by calling him “grifter in chief.”

His narcissistic response – everything revolves around him – leads me to continue wondering why so many Republicans in this country still tolerate his over-the-top actions.

FROM NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL WRITERS:  “Trump’s unprecedented assault on the integrity of American democracy requires a criminal investigation.  The disturbing details of his post-election misfeasance, meticulously assembled by the January 6 committee, leave little doubt that Trump sought to subvert the Constitution and overturn the will of the American people.

“The president, defeated at the polls in 2020, tried to enlist federal law enforcement authorities, state officials and administrators of the nation’s electoral system in a furious effort to remain in power.  When all else failed, he roused an armed mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened lawmakers.”

COMMENT:  No one should be above the law and that includes Trump.  For all of his actions – lying incessantly, provoking an insurrection, and declining to turn over classified documents (plus many more) – Trump deserves to be tried and, I say, convicted in a court of law.

What appears above are only excerpts of the New York Times editorial.  In full length, it is well-written and well-researched, worthy of being read in full.  And it proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Trump deserves oblivion.

IS AMERICA’S TWO-PARTY POLITICAL SYSTEM IN JEOPARDY?

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.   I wrote the headline for this blog after reading the most recent PEW Research report, which raised a weighty issue:  Are the two political parties in the United States still viable?   There is evidence on both sides of the question.   Two reactions from me:   First, if the two-party system is under stress nationally, why haven’t third-party candidates risen to capitalize on the angst?   Second, both current parties enjoy strong support from those who identify with them, even if some, like me, are growing tired of the rhetoric from both as they often advocate violence, not compromise.   Still, one good indication of two-party stress may be that, in Oregon, an Independent gubernatorial candidate, Betsy Johnson, is deemed to have a chance to win the race next November.   If she does, she would beat Democrat Tina Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan.   Here, Kotek stands to get a lot of Democrat votes, but Johnson could take some from her.  Johnson also could take at least a few Republican votes from Drazan.  So, Johnson plays the role of wildcard, though perhaps not a typical spoiler because she is deemed not to be just that.    Of course, it is too early to call the race for Johnson, but the fact that she may have a chance is noteworthy.   PEW Research (by the way, PEW is a family name, not an acronym) started its report this way:

“Increasingly, Republicans and Democrats view, not just the opposing party but also the people in that party, in a negative light.  Growing shares in each party now describe those in the other party as more closed-minded, dishonest, immoral, and unintelligent than other Americans.  Nearly half of younger adults say they ‘wish there were more parties to choose from.’

According to the PEW report, perhaps the most striking change in American thought is the extent to which partisans view those in the opposing party as immoral.  In 2016, about half of Republicans and slightly more than a third of Democrats said those in the other party were a lot or somewhat more immoral than other Americans. Today, 72 per cent of Republicans regard Democrats as more immoral, and 63 per cent of Democrats say the same about Republicans.

“The pattern is similar with other negative partisan stereotypes:  72 per cent of Republicans and 64 per cent of Democrats say people in the opposing party are more dishonest than other Americans.  Fewer than half in each party said this six years ago.

“Large majorities in both parties also describe those in the other party as more closed-minded than other Americans, and this sentiment also has increased in recent years.”

Yet, PEW writers add, there is one negative trait that Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to link to their political opponents.  A 62 per cent majority of Republicans say Democrats are “more lazy” than other Americans, up from 46 per cent in previous studies in 2019 and 2016.  

Here is the tension in what PEW reports:  Many of those who identify with the two-party system are wedded to it strongly and have no intention of giving anything to anyone but their standard bearers; many others want something different in how Americans participate in politics.

It is too early to tell how all of this will sift and sort itself out in the coming months.

But, for at least one clue, watch Oregon.

WHY I READ BOTH THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND THE WASHINGTON POST EVERY DAY

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.

In previous blogs, I have said that I read the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post every day. 

Why?

Well, look only at excerpts of two editorials that ran this morning to grasp that I want to gain perspectives on both sides of major public policy issues facing our country.

From the Journal, I get the right-of-center perspective.

From the Post, I get the let-of-center perspective.

The excerpts.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:  The heavily redacted affidavit in which the FBI requested court permission to search Donald Trump’s home, released Friday, is more tantalizing than it is revealing.  But what is visible, despite pages of blacked-out text, makes the Justice Department appear thoughtful and deliberate — and the former president quite the opposite.

On the orders of a federal magistrate judge, the DOJ unsealed the document claiming to establish probable cause for entering Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to seize suspected sensitive materials improperly transported from the White House. The most important information — the specific pieces of evidence that persuaded the court to permit the FBI search — were obscured to protect the probe and the witnesses who have assisted it.

But the text that remained visible still contained some useful information. This includes a closer look at the Trump camp’s back and forth with the National Archives and Records Administration and the FBI before the search, a granular list of the classification markings on the materials in question, and a mention of the possibility that “evidence of obstruction will be found.”

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  A federal judge on Friday released a heavily redacted version of the FBI affidavit used to justify the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and we can’t help but wonder is that it? This is why agents descended on a former President’s residence like they would a mob boss?

It’s possible the redactions in the 38-page document release contain some undisclosed bombshell.  But given the contours of what the affidavit and attachments reveal, this really does seem to boil down to a fight over the handling of classified documents.  The affidavit’s long introduction and other unredacted paragraphs all point to concern by the FBI and the National Archives with the documents Trump retained at Mar-a-Lago and his lack of cooperation in not returning all that the feds wanted. ‘

So, which of these two venerable journalism outfits is right?  Well, I am not close enough to the process to make a final decision.  But my instincts lie with the Post for this simple, basic reason:  No one is above the law and that includes Trump.

FAMILY SEPARATION AT THE BORDER: AN INTENTIONAL AND TRAGIC TRUMP ADMINISTRATION POLICY…AND WE’RE STILL PAYING A PRICE FOR 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 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 several times previously about this inhumane and tragic Trump Administration policy – separate children from their parents at the border, often literally by tearing away the little ones from their screaming parents.

Read this:  “Children were clinging to whatever part of their parents they could hold on to—arms, shirts, pant legs.  Finally the agent would pull hard and take away the child.  It was horrible.  These weren’t some little animals that they were wrestling over; they were human children.”

It was – and is – tragedy beyond belief.

What’s more, it was intentional.  Donald Trump and his minions, acolytes and sycophants did it.  And they congratulated themselves for the action.

The Atlantic Magazine wrote about this, publishing an 18-month investigation that involved more than 150 interviews, a review of thousands of pages of government records, and 30,000 words written by a solid journalist, Caitlin Dickerson.

Reading the entire story is worth it.  But here I re-print a summary written by Atlantic National Editor Scott Stossell that appeared under this headline:  “The Policy Was Wrong, Period.”

During the Trump Administration, family separations began in secret in the summer of 2017 as part of a regional program to combat illegal crossings in the Border Patrol’s El Paso, Texas, sector.  Jeff Self, the Border Patrol chief in El Paso, spearheaded the initiative following a general directive from Washington that encouraged local officials to take steps to minimize border crossings in their regions, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to voters. This local separation program later expanded to New Mexico.  These initiatives help to account for the more than 1,700 family separations that occurred before they were publicly acknowledged by the Trump Administration in the summer of 2018, according to government records provided to the ACLU as part of a federal lawsuit over family separations. Records obtained by The Atlantic show that officials at DHS and its components acknowledged in writing that these unannounced early family separations would likely be viewed negatively if they were to be made public.  (Carla Provost, the acting head of the Border Patrol, wrote to her boss, the head of Customs and Border Protection, that “it has not blown up in the media as of yet but of course has the potential to.”)   After that acknowledgment, these agencies produced public statements suggesting that separations were not occurring when, in reality, they were.After the Zero Tolerance separation policy was made public in the summer of 2018, Trump Administration officials claimed that their goal was merely to prosecute parents who crossed the border illegally with their children, not to separate relatives from one another.   But myriad documents and interviews prove that this is explicitly false.  For example, Tom Homan, who first proposed the idea to separate migrant families during the Obama Administration and re-raised it under Trump, acknowledged as much:  “Most parents don’t want to be separated,” Homan told Dickerson.  “I’d be lying to you if I didn’t think that would have an effect.”  (Homan says his idea was intended to help families, not hurt them.) Likewise, a report about the regional separation initiative in El Paso that was obtained by The Atlantic uses variations of the phrase family separation more than 10 times.  Numerous other records show that the separation of families, not just the prosecution of parents, was the stated goal of the policy’s architects and many of those who pushed for it to be implemented.As word of a looming, nationwide family-separation program spread throughout the federal government, various officials tried to advocate against the practice by raising concerns with their supervisors. Though Dickerson was often told in her reporting that the worst outcomes of Zero Tolerance, such as the prolonged and even permanent separation of families, could not have been foreseen, internal government reports obtained by The Atlantic warned explicitly of those outcomes and recommended ways to prevent them.  These warnings and recommendations were ignored. Records and interviews reflect the immense pressure to implement Zero Tolerance, not only from ideologically driven “hawks” such as Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, but also from trusted, high-ranking law-enforcement officials serving in apolitical positions.  Kevin McAleenan, the head of Customs and Border Protection under Trump, is among those who took up the mantle of pushing for family separations, declaring his support for the idea in an email obtained by The Atlantic.   Kirstjen Nielsen, the then–Homeland Security secretary, signed a memo approving of Zero Tolerance after a heated debate with McAleenan; Nielsen and others who overheard the discussion say that he argued, among other things, that “you can’t tell Customs and Border Protection not to enforce the law; you can’t exempt parents from prosecution; the president wants this.”  (McAleenan denied ever pressuring Nielsen on his own behalf. He said that he did convey directives that he was receiving from the White House and others.) A top lawyer working for one of the congressional committees that investigated family separations told Dickerson, “To me, the person who did not get enough scrutiny or enough blame or enough attention was Kevin McAleenan.”  The lawyer said, “Kevin knew everything that was going on, he pushed it, he supported it, and he was the key to implementing it.”  After Zero Tolerance ended, McAleenan said publicly that he felt it was a mistake.   “The policy was wrong, period, from the outset,” he told Dickerson.  “It should never have been undertaken by a law-enforcement department, even while facing the stark challenges we faced at the border.”The implementation of Zero Tolerance was a disaster.   For 48 days, catastrophes cascaded.  When Border Patrol agents were instructed to begin separating families under Zero Tolerance, they received little to no information about how to conduct separations or what to communicate to parents and children. After two and a half weeks, the Border Patrol leadership finally told agents to write down which children belonged to which parents.   The guidance that agents received also vilified parents who crossed the border with their children, including those seeking asylum, for having chosen “to put their children in harm’s way.”   The separations were brutal.  Neris González, a Salvadoran consular worker who witnessed many of them, recalled a sea of children and parents, screaming, reaching for one another, and fighting the Border Patrol agents who were pulling them apart. Children were clinging to whatever part of their parents they could hold on to—arms, shirts, pant legs.  “Finally the agent would pull hard and take away the child,” González said.   “It was horrible.  These weren’t some little animals that they were wrestling over; they were human children.” Record keeping about family separations was so lacking that when a magistrate judge in South Texas demanded that the Border Patrol there provide the court with weekly lists of separated children and their locations, threatening to hold the agency in contempt for failing to do so, agents panicked about their inability to fulfill such a basic request.  “I might be spending some time in the slammer,” one supervisor wrote to a colleague, who replied,  “I ain’t going to jail!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Within days of the start of Zero Tolerance, Matt Albence, a high-ranking deputy at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expressed concern that if the parents’ prosecutions happened too swiftly, their children would still be waiting in Border Patrol stations to be picked up by Health and Human Services, making family reunification possible.  He saw this as a bad thing.   When Albence and other enforcement authorities received reports that re-unifications had occurred in several Border Patrol sectors, they lamented the news in writing with comments like “we can’t have this” and “what a fiasco,” and took steps to prevent any further such re-unifications from happening. MY CONCLUSION:  Kudos to The Atlantic for its enterprise journalism.  And, by that, I mean working to find facts and evidence, then writing about it.  More than about opinions.  Plus, brickbats to Trump and company.  They should be held to account for the catastrophe.

A SOLUTION TO THE PGA TOUR VS. LIV GOLF TENSION

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.

Okay, I, a dedicated golfer, have a simple solution to the controversy roiling the sport I love.

Instruct the pro golfers who have defected to LIV golf from the PGA Tour to utter this simple, yet profound, phrase:  I did it for the money, not to grow the game of golf.

In other words, I did it to grow my wallet, not grow the game.

That honesty would do it for me.

Otherwise, enough from Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and their like.  No more talk about how they hope golf grows in the future by their actions today. 

Just take the money, admit it, and run. 

Then, we can get back to real competitive golf, not the LIV exhibition funded by blood money.

Plus, there have been some notions around that, if U.S. corporations do business with Saudi Arabia, which finances LIV golf, then it is okay for golfers to take tainted money from the Saudis. 

I object.  One mistake – corporate business with the Saudis – doesn’t authorize another, LIV golf.

So, if wallets are to be grown, so be it.  Just don’t mix that with growing the game we love.

AN AWE-INSPIRING EXPERIENCE THAT DREW US CLOSER TO GOD

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.

Attending church yesterday at our regular location in Salem, Oregon, Salem Alliance Church, produced this awe-inspiring experience.

It turned out to be a special Sunday, one that illustrated that ALL people – yes, ALL people – can be children of God.  “His family” accommodates all who come to Him.

When we arrived at church, we saw an incredible gathering on the platform.  About 30 people from Middle East countries were there to lead us in music and worship.

Many were young children with their parents.  There was an overall leader, a gentleman who co-runs a great program, Salem For Refugees, which began in our church five years ago or so and continues to be a priority for the church.

The individuals on the platform sang worship songs in these languages, some in their own language and some in languages they learned:

• Swahili

• Urdu

• Farsi

• French

• Spanish

• English

One of the most awe-inspiring moments occurred when the leader asked everyone – those on the platform and those in the audience – to sing the same song in their own language.  It was a great combination of sounds – and it was on key, even if we didn’t know all of the words in other languages.

The individuals on the platform are in Salem because of the work of “Salem For Refugees.”

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the official definition of a refugee “is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence.  A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.  Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so.  War and ethnic, tribal and religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their countries.”

In response, Salem For Refugees began at our church to lead all of us in Salem to view refugees as people, to provide for their living and learning expenses, and to give them a chance to choose God, if they had not already done so in their native lands.

Refugees have come from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Ukraine and other places, with Salem as a place that welcomes them.

Overall, the organization provides direct financial support to families re-settled in Salem and the support includes such expenses as rent, utilities, and furniture.

But more than money is involved.

The organization leads an effort for all of us to see refugees as REAL PEOPLE…people who need our help to survive and thrive.

As I said above, our Sunday service also illustrated that Christ accepts all people who accept Him.  Not whites like myself who happen to live in the United States.  Not persons like myself who happen to speak English.  Not persons like myself who happened to grow up in a church.

ALL people!

The words of Scripture put it very well.

Matthew 11:28: “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden?  Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.  Simply join your life with mine.  Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please.  You will find refreshment and rest in me.”

We saw this first-hand Sunday, an awe-inspiring experience.

TWO VIEWS: THE PRESIDENCIES OF TRUMP AND BIDEN

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.

There are a host of ways to describe the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

I have used many descriptions to deride Trump and commend Biden.

Here is the way Washington Post writer E. J. Dionne made the point in a recent column:

“Whatever else they were doing, the voters who put Biden into the presidency in 2020 were seeking something closer to a functional, normal democracy.  

“This was the opposite of what we had when Trump rampaged around the White House, obsessed only with himself, his image, and the attention-grabbing havoc he could wreak.

“That normality means Biden does not grab the headlines, particularly on cable news and social media, the way Trump still can.

“No one who runs for president lacks ego, but Biden is a fundamentally decent man who has spent his life thinking about what legislation he could pass, which problems he might start solving, and how he could tilt the economic playing field a bit more toward the kinds of people he grew up with in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.”

Excellent point.

Biden may not win re-election if he actually runs again and, clearly, he is not perfect as the U.S. political leader.  But he deserves consideration, not for achieving all he or the left wants, but for behaving in a decent way.

That’s more than we’ll ever get with Trump, who, as Dionne writes, is “obsessed only with himself, his image and the attention-grabbing havoc he could wreak.”

Further, consider this by writer Tom Nichols as it appeared in the most recent on-line edition of The Atlantic Magazine.  Under the headline, “A Deepening Void,” Nichols used telling words to describe Trump.  And, intentionally, I quote it at length because what Nichols writes details the coming “civil war” in America due substantially to Trump.  Or, perhaps a certain kind of civil war is already is here.

From Nichols:

“Civil war is among the many terms we now use too easily.  The American Civil War was a bloodbath driven by the inevitable confrontation between the Union and the organized forces of sedition and slavery.  But at least the Civil War was about something.  

“Compared with the bizarre ideas and half-baked wackiness that now infest American political life, the arguments between the North and the South look like a deep treatise on government.

“The United States now faces a different kind of violence, from people who believe in nothing—or at least, in nothing real.  We do not risk the creation of organized armies and militias in Virginia or Louisiana or Alabama marching on federal institutions.  Instead, all of us face random threats and unpredictable dangers from people among us who spend too much time watching television and plunging down internet rabbit holes.

“These people, acting individually or in small groups, will be led not by rebel generals but by narcissistic wannabe heroes, and they will be egged on by cowards and instigators who will inflame them from the safety of a television or radio studio — or from behind the shield of elected office. Occasionally, they will congeal into a mob, as they did on January 6, 2021.

“There is no single principle that unites these Americans in their violence against their fellow citizens. They will tell you that they are for ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom,’ but these are merely code words for personal grudges, racial and class resentments, and a generalized paranoia that dark forces are manipulating their lives.

“These are not people who are going to take up the flag of a state or of a deeper cause; they have already taken up the flag of a failed president, and their causes are a farrago of conspiracy theories and pulpy science-fiction plots.

“What makes this situation worse is that there is no remedy for it.  When people are driven by fantasies, by resentment, by an internalized sense of inferiority, there is no redemption in anything.  Winning elections, burning effigies, even shooting at other citizens does not soothe their anger, but instead deepens the spiritual and moral void that haunts them.

“Donald Trump is central to this fraying of public sanity, because he has done one thing for such people that no one else could do:  He has made their lives interesting.  He has made them feel important.  He has taken their itching frustrations about the unfairness of life and created a morality play around them, and cast himself as the central character.

“Trump, to his supporters, is the avenging angel who is going to lay waste to the ‘elites, the smarty-pantses and do-gooders, the godless and the smug, the satisfied and the comfortable.’”

And, then, this from Norm Ornstein, an author and political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute:

“…oaths mean little to Trump.  Fealty to the law meant nothing to him.  The country’s interests meant nothing to him.  The only oath he has taken is to his own greed and self-preservation.”

THIS BLOG COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO LIKES WORDS. WHO?

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.

Me.

That’s why, in retirement, I had nothing better to do the other day than read a column by Benjamin Dreyer that appeared in the Washington Post.

I wish I had his job.

He is Random House’s executive managing editor and copy chief and the author of “Dreyer’s English:  An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.”

I like words (better than numbers), so his job would have been a great one for me.

Here is how Dreyer started his column:

“The Washington Post’s style-meisters a few months ago quietly re-styled the name of what is bringing you these words, from the ‘Internet’ to the ‘internet.’  I hope my hosts here will forgive me, but the switch, made long after many other publications had gone lowercase, put me in mind of Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese intelligence officer who, disbelieving that World War II had wrapped up in 1945, continued to stalk the Philippines for another 29 years before, finally, facing and accepting reality and surrendering.”

Word-style folk like Dreyer tend to lean toward what he calls “the Onoda-ish:  Mistrustful of change, never quite wanting, in the face of orthographic evolution, to be the last one to lay down their arms, but certainly never wanting to be the first, either.”

Dreyer remembers how, when fresh copies of the 10^th edition of Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary came out in 1993, he riffed through the pages to find out whether words had changed.  He found at least one:   The words “light bulb,” as they were in the 1983 ninth edition, acknowledged modern life and became “light-bulb”? 

And he also remembers the 11^th edition when the word “light-bulb” became “lightbulb.”

Other changes include not capitalizing the word “internet” or changing the word e-mail to email.

See, this is big stuff in the words business!

Well, in response, sort of, to Dreyer, here are my hot buttons of language and its usage:

• I like to use hyphens such as in the word “bi-partisan,” which is in common usage today, though not so much in action in places like Congress.  If you don’t use the hyphen, the uninitiated could pronounce the word like this – “bip…artisan.”  Or, consider the word “on-line.”  Better with a hyphen.
• I like to use capitalization when I think it is indicated, such as in the word “administration” when applied, for example, to the Biden Administration.  Makes sense to me given the importance of those who work for any president.  Or, in Oregon, the word “Legislature” to describe the 90 lawmakers who meet in Salem every year.  Again, agree or disagree with them, they carry an important job, deserving capitalization.
• I like to use commas because, I believe, they aid in readability.
• According to Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon, the dispute over the FBI’s search of former president Donald Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago highlights a flaw in our public discourse that has real and negative consequences:  The widespread use of the term “political” when what is really meant is “partisan.”  Agreed.  Good point.  Opponents of the search are being partisan, not political.
• And, in an example I have used before in previous blogs on words, I dislike “ize” words, such as, for example, prioritize.  Better to say, simply, “what’s more important than something else,” not prioritize.

Finally, this from Dreyer:

“These days, I find, language seeks its own pace.  Coinages pop up, introduce themselves and re-style themselves as they see fit.  And on-line dictionaries do their impressively nimble best to keep up, as we all do.  A few years ago, a lexicographer friend reminded me that the dictionary doesn’t dictate language but reflects it, and that, if the people inventing and writing and guiding the language didn’t do their jobs properly — pushing and dragging things forward as we see fit — then the dictionary can’t do its job.”

So, language is nothing if not alive and changing – or, if you prefer, growing.

I remember the times when a partner of mine in our lobbying and public relations business told me, as a journalist (at least a former one), that the best example of good writing was “the Associated Press stylebook.”  He lived and died by it.

I didn’t.  I took it as one viewpoint, perhaps good for journalists, but only advisory for others.  And, if I found a better way to use words in my post-journalism life – with hyphens, with capitalization, with commas, and without “ize” letters – so be it. 

After all, I am free actor who likes words that communicate.