[Flashlight]

...that country & western fans are much more forgiving, etc.

The Chicks' transgressions aren't easy to explain, and I don't expect they'll ever be forgiven (unless they somehow have a complete change of heart and show that they understand that what they did was wrong).

At the last CMT Flameworthy Award show, the Chicks' name was loudly booed - while the audience had no trouble cheering and accepting Sheryl Crow, who's been a *much* more vocal critic of Bush and the war. I can understand why, but it's hard to explain.

[faithincowboys]

It wasn't the Chicks antiwar stance that screwed them, it was the ad hominem nature of their comments. Also, I think being antiwar was an afterthought. They were merely pandering to an Anti-American Brit crowd. When the heat came, they tried to dress up their overseas gutless pandering by spewing boilerplate antiwar bs (basically reading off the average Hardball transcript.) I think they probably even had a Dem consultant tell them what to say, the big guns were probably called in. I suspect they will be appearing at the DNC convention in Beantown next year. They are clearly being advised to go totally Left--they figure they lost their base and the Republicans (oddly they didn't know that there is a large overlap there).

The anti-Schwarzenegger comments are a hint of what's to come-- washed up performances at DNC functions in an attempt to get the Norman Lears of the world to bulk buy their CDs like they did Franken's incopherent, unhinged
book.