Because Natalie's statement was perfectly reasonable, and a vast number of country-music listeners now realize that to be true, and realize that their anger at her statement was unwarranted, and admire her for seeing how horrible the President is before they did!

Next question?

Based on the words of the song, I would have thought Natalie had an affair with Bush that ended unhappily and now she has reconciled herself to the idea that it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway. Such are the limitations of pop music.

I wish people would stop ascribing what the Dixie Chicks did in London to higher motives.

The Dixie are just money oriented people. The comments in London were an attempt to pander to their audience. To suck up if you will.

The pandering, while successfull in England, backfired when the comments reached the US.

If, as Maines sings, the Chicks are "not ready to make nice," why should their former fans feel any different?

I know I'm not. The Dixie Chicks are traitors, pure and simple. If they're not ready to apologize, they can't expect to tell records.

The sad thing is that if Islamofascists marched in, they'd be the first up agains the wall. They're criticizing the president for protecting them.

It's not the fans who are boycotting the Dixie Chicks, but the stations. Who makes decisions about playlists? Are they always based on fan popularity -- or might there also be some concern about wingnut backlash?

It's not the fans who are boycotting the Dixie Chicks, but the stations

Why should a station manager be forced to play music of artists whom he disagrees with politically? Last I checked, this was a free country and stations were free to play whatever music they liked. I suppose that the left, in its infinite wisdom, would demand equal time for unpopular dissidents like the Chicks. What would you expect from those who wanted to leave Saddam in power?

One of them is married to an Arab, a fact not generally publicized. Perhaps they're being paid very nicely to badmouth Bush, so lack of radio play time doesn't affect their bottom line.

The first amendment doesn't guarantee listeners.

I believe the term she used was "ashamed" not "embarrassed" that GWB was from Texas. It was a foolish thing for a musician to say if her motive was to sell records, since she must have known how that comment would play back in the US. One of the other group members in an interview said she realized the fallout that NM's comment would entail the instant it was made.

Still, the merits of her comment aside, is it not admirable that she would put expressing her political beliefs ahead of record sales?

I don't that subsection of the group's former fans who were also GWB fans have come around now they so many of them are ex-GWB fans as well. If anything, they probably resent what appears to be gloating along the lines of "I was right you were wrong."

NM and every other member of the group are free to say whatever they wish. Music fans are free to buy their music or not on whatever grounds they wish. Such is life in a free society. Personally I pay little or no attention to the political views of musicians whose music I like. Why should I care about their political views any more than I care about the political views of the guy who fixes my car or the cashier at the grocery store? It's about as silly as voting for a politican on the basis of his musical talent.

Smithy,

Go away. You were already revealed as a intentional parody a couple of weeks ago. Why bother coming back to waste people's time? There are plenty of people who actually do hold outrageous beliefs without you trying to fake it to entertain yourself. A fake troll is even more pathetic than a real one.

Most country music fans support the military and the president, so it was pretty stupid to insult their base. But it's typical leftist thought, "we're so much smarter than everyone else." Why should someone buy/listen to music by someone who insults you and the president you support? They're not as stupid as Michael Moore's fans who don't mind him going around the world saying Americans are the stuidest people on earth. (They think he didn't mean THEM!)
Notice how TIME gave them a cover. The left supports its own.

Americans standing in front of a foreign audience and saying they are embarassed to be from the United States for whatever reason just doesn't "go away"- apology, semi-apology, or no apology, regardless.


Humankind can account for our history going back to, at least, Neaderthals, so we have at least lived on the planet for thirty-five thousand years conciously. Save for maybe ten years or so, we've done it very well without the Dixie Chicks. A boycott in this case is a personal choice. Not me, or anyone, owes these people a listen if they choose not to.

They made the choice, too. A big-hair stupid chick band. BFD.

I have spoken.

Next.

As long as they were able to be big Country Music stars, they would be all about their fans, even going so far as to write a very "redneck" song, "Earl Had to Die".

Any band that insults their fan base is going to get hurt in sales. They just didn't stop to think about who THEIR fans were before shooting their mouths off.

BTW, Country stations stopped playing their songs mostly because of the huge numbers of listeners who called in to complain and threatening to switch to other stations. That's the radio market for you.

It seems that now the Dixie Chicks are trying very hard to switch their fan base to the more mainstream pop-music crowd. Considering their continuing insults directed at the Country music crowd, this is probably a very good move.

Let's face it, they do on occasion write some very nice music that, without Natalie's twangy voice, would never be considered "Country". They'll do much better as a lefty pop band. Maybe there'll be another Lilith Tour they can hop on...

Why didn't you include the most important verse of the song in your post?

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

While people may be justified to disagree with what she said in an aside at a concert in London (which was far from traitorous by any stretch of the imagination) what kind of sick, unamerican person issues death threats for such a mild rebuke of the president? There were multiple death threats against her, some of which the FBI considered credible enough to offer protection from at concerts (e.g., in Dallas).

One of them is married to an Arab, a fact not generally publicized. Perhaps they're being paid very nicely to badmouth Bush, so lack of radio play time doesn't affect their bottom line.

Natalie Maines is married to an American, not an Arab. Her husband's father is a Iranian immigrant and a cardiothoracic surgeon. (Iranians are Persians, not Arabs--if you don't think there is a difference, call an Iranian an Arab, and you will get an earful). His mother is German. So to call him an Arab is not only a racist smear (I assume you meant it as an insult and to attach some nefarious motives to Natalie Maines' statements) but also wholly inaccurate.

You are nothing but a race-baiting bigot.

Good singers tend to be lefties? Joey Ramone,Frank Sinatra, Ted Nugent, I could go on. First Basemen do tend to be lefties however, its because they can make the common infield throws without pivoting as a righthander must. Not sure why there arn't ANY lefthanded catchers though.

My understanding is that their new album is explicitly not aimed at country music fans--they know they've lost a good chunk of their old fan base. So why should country music stations be interested in their new songs? (I have not listened to the new album, I'm not a country music fan and wasn't a fan of the Dixie Chicks before)

You can't recognize the difference between Reagan and Gopher and Arnold running for office and Maines griping at a concert?

what kind of sick, unamerican person issues death threats for such a mild rebuke of the president? There were multiple death threats against her, some of which the FBI considered credible enough to offer protection from at concerts (e.g., in Dallas).

Any politically active celebrity is going to receive death threats (yes, even credible ones). A celebrity is seen by so many millions of people that there are always going to be a couple of real crazies in there.

Any politically active celebrity is going to receive death threats (yes, even credible ones). A celebrity is seen by so many millions of people that there are always going to be a couple of real crazies in there.

So are you excusing and justifying the death threats?

So are you excusing and justifying the death threats?

I think that comment was meant to suggest that the death threats may have come about in large part simply because the controversy raised the public presence of the Dixie Chicks, rather than because of the substance of the controversy. In other words, anyone who reaches a certain level of celebrity gets some death threats, and this controversy happened to raise them to that level, but they would have gotten threats anyway even if it had been some other event that raised their public profile.

That's certainly a debatable premise, but I didn't see any suggestion that the threats were being excused or justified.

I think that comment was meant to suggest that the death threats may have come about in large part simply because the controversy raised the public presence of the Dixie Chicks, rather than because of the substance of the controversy.

The reaction to the statement was completely out of bounds. Radio stations held Dixie Chicks CD burnings and smashings. So not only did the radio stations refuse to play their music but they encouraged the atmosphere of intimidation and hatred and so were at least partially responsible for the death threats and the hate mail. Encouraging a lynch mob is an abuse of the freedom of speech.

How dare people violate their First Amendment rights by not running out and buying their album in mass quantities?

For all of you sneering at the Dixie Chicks, the album is number one on Amazon, and has been since it was released.

Dixie Chicks did long term damage when they said they did not want to be Country singers. They dished Toby Keith and Reba. My God Reba why Reba maybe a little jealous are they. They are done as a Country band. They went to far. It was not their bashing of Bush which did them in. Who do you think country fans will back Reba or Dixie Chicks???????????? They have no CLASS. Reba does. They will be viewed by country fans as low class white trash from now on. Oh I know they are not poor but white trash is a derogatory phrase used by white people aganist white people. To put it in urbane language it is a dissing of that person.

They will viewed by country fans as low class white trash from now on.

Damn. Is that like being viewed by people from Marin County as upperclass white liberals?

And I thought based on most of the other comments that they were going to be viewed as elitist snobs. How will they sleep at night? On a pile of money.

Personally, I can't stand their music, but I hope they continue to make tons of cash.

They criticized the Commander in Chief on foreign soil in a time of war. End. Of. Story.

They will viewed by country fans as low class white trash from now on.

as white trash, I take extreme umbrage at that remark.

I'd add further, but I gotta go rotate the cement blocks on the Maverick.

(1) I don't see how people can claim the "conservative" response to what Maines said is out-of-bounds (excepting, of course, the death threats). If your position is that making consumer choices based on artists' political beliefs is somehow wrong, does this apply to someone who agreed with what she said and was compelled to buy her CD? And if your position is that the radio stations themselves acted improperly, you should note for what its worth that one of the Dixie Chicks herself disagreed on the Howard Stern show just this week.

(2) I don't think this would have been a terribly big deal if the comment was first made in the United States. There was something oddly off-putting, to me, about Maines's views being unveiled overseas. I don't think this makes her a coward, like some seem to. What is bordering on cowardice is for her apologize after realizing that about 3/4 of America disagreed with her statement in its aftermath, then turn around three years later and "unapologize" when that same percentage of Americans now holds an opinion somewhat similar to hers. Bandwagon jumpers are the worst.

(3) They're making a ton of money, so the boycott hasn't worked (it has, it seems, had some role in rendering the Dixie Chicks non-entities on the Billboard et al. charts). Conservative boycotts never work. That's because the success of a boycott depends largely on its portrayal in the media. Few groups are large or disciplined enough to successfully change an actor's behavior by simply foregoing the actor's product by itself. You need the sympathy of a wider audience that may not be personally affected by whatever caused the grievance, but is sufficiently swayed to join in anyway. Then, you need media pressure to become so great that anyone who opposes the boycott is deemed a moral cretin. That's not going to happen for conservative causes, because the media template for a boycott-type activity is "individually powerless little guys from victimized group band together to take down giant evil powerful guy."

For better or worse, a bunch of white people staying away from Disney for having Gay Day, or Christians upset about The Da Vinci Code, don't fit. For better, the Civil Rights-era boycotts, and for worse, the annual Jesse Jackson shakedown, do. What happened a few weeks ago with the illegal immigrant rallies and boycott is a great example; look at how that was covered in the press, then imagine how that coverage would look if someone organizes a boycott of businesses hiring illegal immigrants, or businesses with some degree of Mexican ownership.

Eric Alterman wouldn't agree with me, but the media's role in information cascades is crucially important in these kinds of situations.

Perhaps whichever one was married to an Arab is divorced by now and yes I do believe that one's spouse can be an influence. One of them is the daughter of a Persian doctor, so perhaps I wasn't wrong that the bottom line isn't as important as it might be to entertainers who don't have a sugar daddy.

Entertainers should keep their politics positive by campaigning for the candidates of their choice in the proper venue and use better judgment than to make themselves ridiculous by making political statements while performing.

As for being ashamed of being from the same country as the president. Nothing's stopping her from relocating to somewhere where the president is more to her liking, like for instance, Iran.

Race baiting? No way. It's not racist to fill in the blanks the media choose to omit. Knowing the whole story allows readers to come to their own conclusion, not the one the "reporter" has chosen.

I didn't like what NM said in London, but I firmly stand behind her right to say it. I didn't stop listening until she was unwilling to face the consequences of her actions by claiming censorship. She had the right to say what she wanted, others had the right to be offended and stop buying her music. While the reaction was bigger than it would have been if she were Jane Doe due to her status as a celebrity, the effect she has can be bigger for the same reason. If you climb up on a taller soapbox, more people will see you, but you could have farther to fall as well.