Here's the AP's Steve Wilstein on Martha Burk's latest complaint about CBS, The Masters, and Augusta National:
Sorry, Martha Burk, you just lost me. You say it is "appalling" that women soldiers can lay down their lives for democratic values but are shut out of Augusta National Golf Club.I say the women fighting in Iraq are worried a lot more about sandstorms than sand traps.
You say it is an "insult" to the 250,000 women serving in the U.S. military that CBS is broadcasting the Masters from a club that discriminates.
I say that CBS isn't an evil conspirator against women by showing the tournament and that a lot of us relish a reprieve from the war by watching Tiger Woods among the azaleas and dogwoods for a few days.
You say, as president of the National Council of Women's Organizations, that there is a "clear link" between breaking down barriers at a golf club and fighting for ideals in Iraq.
I say one woman member, 100 or 1,000 at Augusta National is a raindrop in the storm of problems we're facing on all fronts in our society.
Slowly, but surely, more and more reporters and pundits are finally getting the joke about Burk. What we're dealing with here is not some crusader for Women's rights, but a huckster and an opportunist who can't stoop low enough to get her mug on camera or her name in the newspaper. The fight over Augusta these days is primarily a test of wills between Burk and Augusta National Chairman Hootie Johnson; and secondarily about Burk finding a way to make her outfit, the National Council of Women's Organizations, the primary mouthpiece of Left wing feminism on the public scene.
