Posted on 07/21/2004 12:28:19 PM PDT by O.C. - Old Cracker
NEW YORK The media storm over singer Linda Ronstadt getting booted out of a Las Vegas casino reached as far as the editorial page of The New York Times today, but a local daily, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has been there from the start, even before the fateful show at the Aladdin.
Today, its columnist Norm Clarke, who writes "Vegas Confidential," declared that Ronstadt's dedication of her encore song, "Desperado," to filmmaker Michael Moore was "only the half of it."
Meanwhile, the other local daily, the Las Vegas Sun, has weighed in with an editorial charging that the casino boss "overreacted" and "Las Vegas should be embarrassed at her treatment here."
But today, in the Review-Journal, columnist Clarke claimed that Ronstandt arrived at the casino on Saturday "with an agenda," having told the paper's entertainment writer Mike Weatherford (in a story published Friday), "I keep hoping that if I'm annoying enough to them, they won't hire me back."
At the time, the paper did note that she said this "laughingly."
Clarke obtained what it called Ronstadt's "verbatim quotes" to the audience from the casino. They had Ronstadt complaining that the casino had put up a big billboard calling the show part of a "Greatest-Hits Tour," which was news to her. "That is something they cooked up here in Vegas ... They are good at that," she said, according to the Aladdin.
Though the paper has written several stories and columns on the eviction since Friday, Editor Thomas Mitchell says the incident is no big deal. "It's a tempest in a teapot," Mitchell says. "This is just another entertainer mouthing off. It's no different than Whoopi Goldberg or anyone else."
Some guests at the Aladdin spilled their drinks, tore down posters, and demanded their money back, in response to the dedication. The newspaper, however, quoted other concertgoers saying they didn't know what the fuss was all about and that they had no problem with the song dedication.
The New York Times, in an editorial this morning, knocked those who believe that Ronstadt "had no right to express a political opinion from the stage." As for those causing the ruckus, it noted that "if their intemperate behavior began to worry the management, then they were the ones who should have been thrown out..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles Geraci (cgeraci@editorandpublisher.com) is a reporter for E&P.

Au contraire! It's a LOT different. The people at the SlumFest went there to support Kerry. The people who paid good money at the casino went there to be entertained, not proselytized.
From the looks of it, she needs the Slim-Fast sponsorship deal. Obviously, she is a pagan/athiest.
She looks like the character from MAD TV, I think the name is Swan?
It appears that Ronstadt is very much like Michael Moore in more ways than one.
Exactly! Haha!
Las Vegas is the most American city left in America...Rondstadt got no more than she would have gotten trying the same act in rural Kansas.
They were paying her to enterain them, not to lecture them on politics. If they are training you to perform like a circus monkey, then make with the circus monkey act, Linda, and keep your silly politics to yourself.
yes I was just trying to come up with the name myself
LOL! You ain't traveled much have you, boy? Come on over to Huntsville, Alabama or Chattanooga, TN. For her comments, Ronstadt would have gotten tarred and feathered by some of the neighborly women folk in these parts.
How could she let herself get so fat?
"Spill drinks" indeed!
One look at her would make me spill my dinner..
Overeating.
don't you heathens get it? Freedom of speech means special people like Whoopi, Micheal Moore, Tim Robbins, and myself can say whatever we want but you guys don't get to respond and certainly can not critical of OUR opinions.
When will these Hollywood pigs get the message. If they love lies, have such a hate for truth, then maybe they should move to Iran, or Syria. No hope of liberating these jacka@@. Moore has done us one favor, he is converting more of the undecided to go with President Bush.
Woops! Manybe they could go to Canada. Lots of common nuts up there.
Las Vegas Sun owner Greenspan is a lefty, Clinton supporter. Daughter was an intern for Hillary!
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