Okay I think I do know why. It was this Russia, Ukraine and Crimea thing. A potentially volatile area of the world, with a long history of instability amongst its various nationalities and ethnic groups, threatens to explode, and it was like the world, and especially America's media, went into a time warp.
There was of course the instant reflex to fall back into the old Cold War postures and attitudes. Anything happening anywhere has to be filtered through the lens of the old Soviet vs USA contest. It always has to be about us. Couldn't be about Crimea having been part of Russia for a couple of hundred years, and then being handed over to Ukraine during the days of the old USSR, and now Putin exploiting these tensions and the unrest in the Ukraine to attempt to re-establish the glory of the Russian Empire, and perhaps a little buffer between him and NATO. [Catches breath].
No rather it had to be about how Russia and Putin view the U.S. and the American president. Whatever.
But the other knee jerk response was to bring back the usual suspects from the Bush administration. Everyone who has been wrong about every major foreign policy event or issue for the last 20 years was back in full force on all the network and cable news shows and op-ed pages. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton and Rice were there weighing in. And for good measure McCain, Graham, and Giuliani. Suddenly we were all marching to Baghdad again with the same carload of clowns trying to lead the way.
And the first question I had to ask was "why?" Why does anyone care what any of these people think about anything going on in the world anywhere? As stated above they have gotten just about everything wrong for so long, it's hard to remember the last time any of the people above got anything right. But there they were dominating the Sunday talk shows and the news shows. They were partying like it was 2003.
I couldn't help but think that nobody should be listening to them. At the least none of them should be allowed on any public forum without first having issued an apology for being so disastrously wrong about everything, especially Iraq. These people owe us apologies, they owe the people they sent over there apologies. They certainly are not owed a venue to keep spouting their crap.
It then struck me that they owe The Dixie Chicks an apology. You remember them? They were a highly successful country music trio from Texas. They had sold millions of records and filled stadiums. They were hot. And despite being country musicians from Texas, they were on the liberal side of the political spectrum, though that was not widely known. And in the buildup and rush to war in Iraq under false pretenses, they found themselves playing a concert in England, our primary partner in crime in Iraq.
The people in England were more against the war than was the population of the United States at the time, even though the U.S. was quite divided as well. Relatives traveling in England around that same time told me of the graffiti one could see around London, primarily saying "F^&* Bush!" So it was in that atmosphere that the Dixie Chicks at their concert asked the crowd not to judge all Americans by Bush and his administration and supporters. Natalie Maines, the lead singer, even announced they were ashamed that Bush, like them, was from Texas. The exact quote is:
"Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas."
Pretty mild stuff compared to what is said routinely now about a Democratic president by many on the right. But once tape of the concert and the comment began circulating a shit storm erupted. ClearChannel, which owns thousands of radio stations, including many country stations, yanked all Dixie Chicks records off the air. Maines tried apologizing and clarifying that she should have been more respectful, but the damage had been done.
There were events around the country where Dixie Chicks records and CD's were burned or bulldozed or buried while crowds stood and cheered. How dare they criticize their hero American president as he prepared to lead us to war? [In fact the war erupted about a week after Maines made her comment].
For his part Bush had this to say: “The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say.… they shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out.… Freedom is a two-way street ….”
Funny how the right didn't think Freedom was a two-way street when the patriarch of Duck Dynasty spoke his mind about gays, blacks and the best wives are the ones you get when they're 15. But I digress.
The Dixie Chicks have continued on with some breaks since then. They won awards. They made more records. They played concerts, albeit at smaller venues. But their career as a band would never recover to the same heights pre-Bush comment. And as it turns out they were the ones who were right.
So all those wrong-headed jerks filling our screens and babbling on about Russia and the Crimea should just shut up and go away. But before they do they should apologize to people in the following order: 1. All the people killed in Iraq, all the service members killed or maimed; 2. All the families of the service members who were killed or maimed or called back to countless tours of duty while their families struggled to make ends meet; 3. The Dixie Chicks; 4. The rest of us. Then please just slink off back under a rock and STFU.
And finally one last random thought about the Dixie Chicks: I wonder how many people who gleefully or eagerly threw their Dixie Chicks CD's in the piles or into the pits would later show up at Tea Party rallies with signs showing Obama morphed into Hitler? And it would never occur to them they had too much irony in their diets.