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Fixing Up The Dixie Chicks
Media Research Center ^ | May 23, 2006 | L. Brent Bozell III

Posted on 05/24/2006 12:35:01 PM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan

The Dixie Chicks and their marketing gurus clearly know publicity. They asked themselves: How can we get ourselves featured on the cover of Time and hailed on CBS’s “60 Minutes” just before the new CD comes out? Easy. Trash George W. Bush again.

Time’s cover had the three women framed in black with the celebratory title “Radical Chicks.” They were famous not because of their music, but because “They criticized the war and were labeled unpatriotic.” That’s a bit off. They criticized George W. Bush, with lead singer Natalie Maines telling a London audience the band so despised him they were ashamed to be from the same home state. That isn’t exactly a brilliant anti-war policy statement that Madeleine Albright would crib. It was an insult.

But the New York Times, in its own Chicks cheerleading story, explained that once again, Time magazine has been caught awarding covers like back scratches to its friends and benefactors: the Chicks had performed at the party for this year’s “Time 100" issue. (That issue also featured a Chicks profile touting their “tart and tasty” new CD and their courage in the face of death threats from former fans.) This tactic is nothing new. Time awarded Bill and Melinda Gates its “Person of the Year” honors for 2005 after the Gates Foundation paid for the magazine’s summit on their global health summit a few weeks before. If you have a liberal viewpoint and something of value to offer Time magazine, you, too can rent that famous cover. The Dixie Chicks got it for a song, or two.

Time music writer Josh Tyrangiel spun like a top about how these country singers read the paper daily with a “solid understanding” of current events. How typically liberal. They hate Bush, therefore they are educated voters who know the issues that matter. Tyrangiel cooed over their failure to apologize for their Bush hatred: “apologies are for lapses of character, not revelations of it.” Opposing the last president with consistency was a sign of a psychological disorder – “Clintonphobia,” Time called it – but staunchly opposing this one is a sign of moral character.

Tyrangiel is probably still aglow from his article in 2004 attacking country star Toby Keith for his anti-terrorist anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” which promised a boot up the terrorists’ collective behind. In that article, Tyrangiel quoted – here she is again – wailing Natalie Maines: "I hate it. It's ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant."

Keith was not to be lauded for producing this song, or hailed as a man of character. Instead liberal opposition “played right into Keith's exaggerated sense of grievance.” Time added that in the controversy over his song, Keith was reduced to “a caricature,” an extreme. In 2002, Tyrangiel also sneered about how Toby Keith’s song came from “the Rush Limbaugh guide to foreign policy” and was “the catchiest song about vengeance since The Caissons Go Rolling Along.”

This, from the magazine that hypes the Dixie Chick death threats?

The new clarion call from the anti-Bush media is the demand that the Dixie Chicks be forgiven for trashing Bush, and country music’s audience in general, and proceed directly to the top of the charts because Bush’s poll numbers are low. As growing numbers of Americans sour on Bush, asks Tyrangiel, “shouldn't there be a proportional feeling of forgiveness toward the Dixie Chicks?”

The New York Times finds a sanguine liberal trend at the top of the music charts. Citing the lowest poll number that could be found, the latest Harris poll pegging Bush’s approval at 29 percent, music writer Jon Pareles touted that the Dixie Chicks were on Amazon’s top-ten sales likes with “albums with antiwar songs” by Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Paul Simon, and Pearl Jam.

On CBS’s “60 Minutes,” reporter Steve Kroft insisted some critics think the new CD is the best Dixie Chicks work ever – smooch, smooch. Since the Bush-bashing incident in London, he insisted, “the only thing that's changed is that nearly 70 percent of the American public now agrees with her, at least to some extent.” He explained their newest single is “about the hatred and narrow-minded intolerance that they encountered for expressing an opinion.”

In the midst of all this, and the inevitable focus on how pro-Bush rednecks wanted them dead, Maines explained, they weren’t about to wear “I Love Bush” T-shirts to pander to country-music audiences: “We’re not politicians. We’re musicians.”

You could have fooled me. All the laudatory publicity they’re receiving, is a direct results of a marketing strategy that is all about politics, not about the music. They are pitching themselves to the liberal media as musical McCains – love us as we courageously attack our conservative base.

The New York Times declared that for the Dixie Chicks, “free speech was costly.” But the publicity their friends in the media are now showering on them is priceless.



TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: freespeechwhores; nataliemange; somedodynoticeus; whocares
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To: Prodn2000

They aren't even on today's chart for the Top 100. Are you making a prediction for next week?


81 posted on 05/25/2006 6:53:24 AM PDT by sarasota
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To: HIDEK6; Conservative Coulter Fan
“. . . the catchiest song about vengeance since The Caissons Go Rolling Along. . . . "

Guess the reporter couldn't be bothered to look up the words.

Over hill, over dale
As we hit the dusty trail,
And the Caissons go rolling along.
In and out, hear them shout,
Counter march and right about,
And the Caissons go rolling along.
Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where e'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.
Anybody see anything about vengeance (or even warfare) in that one? I didn't think so.

IIRC, the author wrote this while he was waiting for the horsedrawn artillery to come up during a drill exercise in the Philippines.

I hate ignorant, lazy reporters.

82 posted on 05/25/2006 6:54:36 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother ((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))
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To: AnAmericanMother

You shouldn't expect the facts to get in the way of what the reporter apparently thought was a clever turn of phrase.


83 posted on 05/25/2006 6:57:36 AM PDT by HIDEK6
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To: AnAmericanMother

I spent two years in the Field Artillery Corps.


84 posted on 05/25/2006 6:58:22 AM PDT by HIDEK6
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To: HIDEK6

My daddy was in the Shore Artillery, at least until they transferred him to the horse cavalry . . . the last remount of the 2nd Cav Div.


85 posted on 05/25/2006 7:04:11 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother ((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan

Do they have a sponsor?

Is there another "lipton" to attack?

Still will not buy lipton.


86 posted on 05/25/2006 7:15:49 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: sarasota

Yeah, I had wrote next week's chart. They will be # 1 next week if only because a lack of good new stuff debuted this week. RHCP sold 165,000 and were #1 this week.


87 posted on 05/25/2006 7:28:51 AM PDT by Prodn2000
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To: headstamp
I hope Kroft had a flashlight with him so he could see while climbing up their collective rear ends.

Merely turning on the headlights of his Yugo would have provided ample light to navigate Ms. Maines ample hind-quarters.

88 posted on 05/25/2006 7:31:56 AM PDT by Ignatz (Freeper cyborg: "The lay teachers could not make hands of some girls.")
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To: GSWarrior

How about Alison Kraus?


89 posted on 05/25/2006 8:40:17 AM PDT by JZelle
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To: 2banana

Their new album is only selling 400K in its first week. Thats less than 1% of Americans supporting them. NOT 70%.


90 posted on 05/25/2006 10:16:09 AM PDT by beansox
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To: Prodn2000

#1 on Amazon is a reflection of that retailers demographics. Not the entire market and especially not the entire COUNTRY.


91 posted on 05/25/2006 10:17:55 AM PDT by beansox
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To: Prodn2000

See post #90.


92 posted on 05/25/2006 10:18:25 AM PDT by beansox
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To: Prodn2000

The industry basically rigged it for them so they will be #1. The original release date was pushed back from April, so they woudnt have to compete with the likes of Toby Keith and Rascal Flats. Their are no major releases for about month until 6/13 when Billy Joel releases his album.

Their success of this album is being manuactured by media giants such as Viacom, who own CMT, VH1, CBS, TIME, (beginning to see a pattern?) and pumped up by fans who have already gone on record as saying they were buying mulitple copies to make it look like the chicks have more fans than they actually do.


Anyone other artists out there that would hae gotten all the plublicity these hacks have gotten, would have sold 800K in their week. Some are even well liked enough to sell that many WITHOUT it. But the chicks cant. Their last major studio album solf 780K in tis first week. So despite the rigging of the #1 debut, the chicks still have lost millions and it has more to do with the people they are, thean the product they push!


93 posted on 05/25/2006 10:26:35 AM PDT by beansox
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To: GSWarrior
I am not familiar with Evans. Is she good?

Sara Evans - Perfect

Crank up them speakers!!!!
ArtistDirect.com l Amazon.com l Ticketmaster.com l CDconnection.com l Songfacts.com l Walmart.com


94 posted on 05/25/2006 10:42:34 AM PDT by acad1228 (Faithful servant of the Dark Lord Xenu!)
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To: Zhangliqun

Okay, that changes it. Maybe Gallagher and a watermelon and sledgomatic...


95 posted on 05/25/2006 11:46:38 AM PDT by Froufrou
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To: beansox

Borders is offering a coupon for $6 off their CD.


96 posted on 05/25/2006 12:10:23 PM PDT by sarasota
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan
The Dixie Chicks controversy is a case study in how right-wing media lies in the face of their rubes.

After the Dixie Chicks made their first comment about Bush, AM talk radio and their TV counterparts went on and on and on about how the DC couldn't sell records anymore. Drudge was the worst, constantly running distorted DC album sales and concert receipts.

The message from the rightwing media was clear: nobody buys DC music; they couldn't fill up a Holiday Inn lounge if they had free admission.

Now the rightwingers have changed their tune completely. Now they claim that the DC never had any success until they criticized Bush, and that the whole controversy was to sell albums to salvage their pathetic careers.

Brett Bozell and other rightwingers did a complete 180, but it's okay; their sheeple won't notice.

97 posted on 05/25/2006 12:27:43 PM PDT by MurryMom
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To: MurryMom

want some cheese with your whine or is there enough on your backside to cover it?


98 posted on 05/25/2006 2:07:29 PM PDT by beansox
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To: sarasota

His father is Iranian , His Mother is Frog.


99 posted on 05/25/2006 2:10:33 PM PDT by sgtbono2002
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To: sarasota
Or are they rockers now?

Hell no!

We don't want 'em either.

100 posted on 05/25/2006 2:10:55 PM PDT by humblegunner (If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.)
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