Puff Piece

The Sun today ran a pretty irritating puff piece about the new members to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education. Not irritating because a piece ran, but irritating because reporter Susan Gvozdas manged to go the entire article without actually calling unregistered Democratic lobbyist Teresa Milio Birge an unregistered Democratic lobbyist.

Sure Gvozdas talked about all of Birge's service as a Democratic committee staffer in Annapolis, serving as the lobbyist of the Maryland Municipal League, and her "part time as a government relations consultant and as special assistant to the director of state relations for the University System of Maryland" all without actually mentioning that Birge was working as a lobbyist.

Of course, what little things of substance that Birge talked about in the article are pretty irritating too:

Birge, 36, who has two children, said she hopes to use her background working with the House of Delegates' Appropriation Committee to help demystify the budget process for her constituents in West County. After watching the county executive and the superintendent battle over budget items, she wants to find a way to tone down the rhetoric and work together.

"That was very difficult for everyone," Birge said. "I would hope in the future we could avoid that."

Read as: "I am going to stand for the status quo and support whatever Superintendent Maxwell wants me to support. I would hope in the future we can tone down the rhetoric by having the County Council and County Executive roll over and die and do whatever the Superintendent asks."

As expected, it looks like the Sun will be in the bag for the retention of Birge and the continuation of this cockamamie "retention election" farce...