MEDIA ROULETTE
May 3, 2003
Dixie Chicks Riding High
The fans cheered the Dixie Chicks at the kick-off performance for their new tour in Greenville, S.C. Right on! See Yahoo. Salon did a good deconstruction of the Dixie Chicks interview by Diane Sawyer on ABC. Through practically the entire interview Sawyer maintained a puckered look of distaste and disparagement as she kept hammering them about this "15 words" that got them into so much trouble. "What were you thinking?" As if it was so absolutely unthinkable to say, "We're ashamed President Bush is from Texas." What were they thinking? They were thinking what they were saying. They are ashamed of Bush. Why is that so hard to understand? Sawyer never broke character in her role as the voice of her corporate owners. The Chicks were very wary, thinking carefully before and as they spoke, erring on the side of caution after what they have been through. But essentially they stood up for their belief that they should be able to express their points of view, that it is patriotic to question war. More power to them. It's a pretty pathetic situation when the big powerful politicians are too chicken to stand up for the Constitution, so it falls to some chicks from Dixie to do it. I would like to see someone interview them who didn't look like she was cleaning the catbox. I'd be saying, "Right on, honey, I was proud of you!" See Salon.
Joe Conason talks about Bush's aircraft carrier photo op, also in Salon. "With the cooperation of the Pentagon (and at the expense of the taxpayers), Karl Rove had arranged one of the tackiest, most expensive campaign photo ops in history, but my recollections kept me from becoming absorbed in the macho atmospherics, let alone the president's anticlimactic speech about Iraq," said Conason. "The vague official account presented in Bush's campaign autobiography -- wherein he suggests that he "kept flying" with his Texas Guard unit until he completed his service -- is one of the more egregious prevarications ever committed to print by a presidential candidate. Closer to the true story, in which Bush mysteriously disappears from duty after failing to take his annual physical in 1972, is this account that appeared in the Boston Globe."
"Treat the Corporate Media Like the Enemy", at The Black Commentator is right on the money. Here's a sample: "On June 2, transnational corporations claiming to be American citizens are likely to win permission to complete their conquest and consolidation of U.S. mass media, both broadcast and print. Their servant is Colin Powell's son, Michael, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and the most anti-public overseer of the public airwaves since passage of the Federal Communications Act of 1934."