Maude Burns has their number

By

opinions

December 31, 2015 - 12:00 AM

You have to love Maude Burns.
An occasional letter writer to the Register, Maude has a knack for giving the skinny on politicians — Gov. Brownback is a favorite target — that finds favor with most folks, save ultra-conservatives.
While her prose may be laced with home-spun analogies, Maude obviously is a deep thinker. She understands the public good formula that defines state government isn’t served well by leaving public education, highways, social needs and the infirmed — physically and mentally — wanting. She rails against tax cuts that fill the deep pockets of the rich and tax increases that burden the poor.
Maude gets it, much better than the huge flock of national media birds who fly in thin and rarefied air.
So does Matt Bai, a Yahoo political writer, who came down from his perch recently to admit that his forecast of Donald Trump’s demise was premature — and may never come true. His analysis is that Trump’s ongoing success is because he connects with millions of people whose disdain for the national media has done much to trigger his popularity.
He wrote: “This is a simmering reaction to smugness and shallowness in the media, a parade of glib punditry unmooored to any sense of history or personal experience. It’s about our love for gaffes and scandals, real or imaged, and our rigid enforcement of the politically correct.”
Recently, the sensationalized report about the New Mexico governor being inebriated led the morning “news” — i.e. show business — and reminded me more of National Enquirer than national news.
It was another of the prolonged opportunities taken to blow out of proportion what is titillating and more pandering than informative — outside of Santa Fe, no one cares. Other stories that might have been meaningful to many were relegated to sound bites.
Too bad  Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow aren’t around today. But, if they were, they probably wouldn’t get a smell from those who control the national media. Neither had movie-star looks and at the heights of their careers both were well into their years.
Have you ever wondered why a plain Jane, who might look better in a pantsuit, isn’t hired to repose on a couch, flip her hair provocatively and gush from Botox-enhanced lips drivel disguised as commentary?
Given the opportunity, Maude could set them straight.

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