Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner of May's Robert O'Brien Trophy for the idiot of the month: Pat Boone. Yes, that Pat Boone, the has-been entertainer from the 50s turned columnist for the Worldnutdaily. And that esteemed web rag is now reporting that Pat Boone is hopping mad at the Dixie Chicks for daring to criticize President Bush. His reasoning, as you might imagine, is quite absurd:
Music legend Pat Boone is ripping into the Dixie Chicks for withdrawing their apology for a previous attack on President Bush.
"I have four daughters, and I taught them to respect their elders, even if they weren't president of the United States," Boone told Fox News host Neil Cavuto today. "I think it's outrageous for any of these performers to be bashing our president the way they are."
Because Bush is older than them? Is he seriously saying that it's wrong to criticize anyone older than you? Brilliant idea, Pat. Let's amend the first amendment to say that you have freedom of speech unless the target of your speech is older than you, then you have to shut up. From now on, you have to be at least as old as the president in order to criticize him in any way. And since most presidents are at least 50 years old, that leaves out about half the nation. No more political disapproval of anyone older than you, Pat Boone says so. One wonders where Pat's outrage was when younger conservatives were attacking Clinton. Oh, but his reasoning gets even better:
"If I were the president of Iran, if I were Osama bin Laden or any of the terrorist organizers and I could have my wish list totally," Boone said, "I couldn't ask for anything better than for America's entertainers to bash their president, denigrate him, make him seem like an idiot and a self-serving fool, and then have the media go along with it and promote it like crazy and try to undermine the whole war effort."
Ah, the tried and ridiculous old line about criticizing a president during wartime supporting our enemies. So let's see, not only does Pat think it's wrong to criticize anyone older than us, including the President, but you can't criticize the President at all if there's a conflict going on somewhere. Well, I'm sure ol' Pat followed that advice himself during the Clinton administration when our troops were in harm's way in the Balkans. He didn't? Oh.
Well I'm sure he did so back when Jimmy Carter was in office. After all, criticizing the president then might have been just what the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran wanted, to make him look like a weak, ineffective leader. What? Boone was criticizing Carter and campaigning for Reagan as he savaged Carter as a weak-kneed wimp? Well gosh, Pat, this isn't looking good for you. In fact, you're looking a lot like a hypocrite here. Gee, I never would have guessed. Maybe you should go back to making a fool of yourself doing bad remakes of heavy metal songs.
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So, it seems, we've gone from the 60s mantra of "never trust anyone over thirty!" to the modern Worldnut mantra "never trust anyone under fifty!" Kind of rough on the 30 and 40 year-old set. They're getting it from both ends....
flatlander100 writes:
When I was in my 20's everyone was talking about the thirtysomethings...it was their time. Just as I got to my 30's, suddenly all anyone cared about was the GenX'ers, or the 20-somethings.
What a gyp.
Ed writes:
In fairness to Pat, his entire career consisted of remaking the songs of others. At least in the early days his crappy remakes exposed white teens, who might not otherwise have known about it, to the music of the original black entertainers like Little Richard who actually knew how to perform those songs.
I wonder if there's any wiggle room in the "don't criticize anyone older than you" rule. Bush is only 2 years older than I am and I think he's a self-serving moron and a criminal with dreams of dictatorship. I'll have to get Pat to give me a ruling.
How does this rule work for the dead? Can we criticize someone who died, but who would easily be older than us if he or she were still alive? Can I critizcize Hitler or Stalin? Or Socrates or Plato?
Or does the rule only require we wait until we are as old as that person was when he or she died? E.g. In 3 years I will be 34, so I then will be able to criticize Jesus!!
Hey, don't sweat it all you under 50's. I'm over 50 and I criticize him enough for 5 or 6 of you. As a matter of fact, since I'm over 60, I have room for even more. So just send your criticisms to me and I will utter them and Pat will have nothing to complain about.
Thanks, Karl!
Or should I refer to you as the "Patron Saint of the Comparatively Younger"?
As they noted over at SadlyNo, according to Pat's logic we all should be venerating Bin Laden, since he is (assumedly) older than all of us.
Then all those conservatives who are critizing Bush for not taking their stand on immigration, abortion & gay rights should just shut up. It's making him look bad in front of OBL.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
Theodore Roosevelt
When I was 20, in the 1960's, I was told never to trust anyone over 30. It was the best advice I ever got. Now I am in my 60's and I still don't trust anyone over 30.
Clearly Pat Boone's strategy is working very well: the new Chicks CD is #1 on Amazon and iTunes today.
The folks at DailyKos are (holding their nose about buying a "country" CD and) promoting the hell out of it.
See, I find promoting it if you don't like the music every bit as idiotic as refusing to buy it if you do like it. It's music, folks. If you like the music, listen to it. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would refuse to listen to good music because of the political views of the musicians, or listen to bad music for the same reason. These people are just obsessed with making everything under the sun political. I couldn't possibly care any less what the Dixie Chicks think about anything, I'm not going to listen to their music regardless because I don't like that music. I don't care if they declared themselves libertarians and went on a "we hate creationism" tour, I'm still not listening to their music.
For the same reason (some) people boycott the products of companies whose practices they don't like. What's so hard to understand about that? It's voting with your wallet either way. And some people, including me, find it harder to appreciate the music of someone they know to be a bad or stupid person. I don't spend much effort trying to find such things out, but if someone pointed out to me that a singer was rabidly homophobic, for example, I probably wouldn't want to listen to him/her anymore. It's like having it brought to your attention that there's a bug in your food.
I first paid attention to the Dixie Chicks, never having heard their music, because of the whole flap about Bush. So I gave their music a try and discovered I liked it.
I think Carter was one of the worst Presidents America ever had; but at least he didn't blame his critics for his military failures, and neither (AFAICR) did any of his supporters.
Gretchen wrote:
But what about the opposite? Would you go and eat food with bugs in it because the cook agrees with you politically? It's one thing if, as you say, it prompts you to give them a try and you find you like their music. But I already know I don't like their music and their political views aren't going to make the music any better. I don't listen to music to make a political statement, I listen to music for enjoyment. There are still Christian bands I listen to, while disagreeing completely with what they say. Rage Against the Machine is one of my favorite bands, but I find their politics to be ridiculously simplistic. I just don't care about their political views, I care about the music.
I think those are different situations. An entertainer isn't harming anyone by having political beliefs you disagree with. They aren't employing children in sweatshops. I'd listen to music made by a homophobe. I probably already do but don't realize it.
Of course not. But even in my analogy, I wasn't talking about real bugs. I suppose you could change it to "Would you eat food you didn't like because the cook agrees with you politically," but the answer would still be no.
I'm not saying it does. I'm saying their political views can make me more or less likely to want to listen to their music. To continue with the food analogy, there could be two chefs of equal culinary ability, whose food I liked. But if I found out something horrible about the beliefs or character of one, eating his/her food would make it seem as if (in an exaggerated sense) there were a bug in it.
So do I. And I would enjoy music made by fascists, for example, less. Additionally I don't care to put money in their pockets by buying their albums. It's not a huge deal, but it matters to me.
Well, that's you.
One problem with the discussion is the total subjectiveness of the term 'good music', which I'm assuming just means 'music I enjoy'. Maybe you actually can keep the performer divorced from the sounds and words, Ed, but if you found out for example that Sting was and always has been a virulent racist, and started expressing such in his solo albums for the next decade and goes on the talk show circuit to express his views, it would have no impact on your enjoyment of the music and therefore, whether it is 'good music' or not? What if he also clarified what he meant by certain lyrics in songs you do enjoy right now, and you find out that he was actually expressing a patently offensive idea? I don't disagree that people going nuts about the political views of the Dixie Chicks is going overboard, but I agree with Gretchen that the enjoyment of someone's music can certainly be tainted or even ruined based on other expressions of the artist.
For example, I'm a Jimi Hendrix freak myself; I think he's simply the most gifted rock and roll guitarist and that what he did musically has not been surpassed by anyone since. Sure he did tons of drugs, occasionally to the point of not being able to perform well, had at least one and most likely more illegitimate children, and I believe was actually in favor of the Vietnam war for a short time, but that doesn't phase me. Now, if I found out that on all his studio albums that his guitar work was not actually performed but was pasted together by the engineer from Jimi playing one note or chord at a time, then yea, I'd have trouble saying that the result was 'good music'; my enjoyment of his music goes beyond the sounds on the album.
Maybe I've misrepresented what you mean by 'good music', or maybe you are saying that it's just music and no one should take it so seriously.
Dave wrote:
No, it really wouldn't. And Sting is actually quite a good example, both because I'm a huge fan of his and because I have a friend who has told me quite a bit about him that is rather unsavory. Vinx was signed to Sting's record company, Sting produced his first CD and he opened for him on the Soul Cages tour. He says that everything you've ever heard about Sting being a megalomaniac and a jerk is true, that he was absolutely maddening to work with, and when he completed his 3-disc deal with Pangea, he ran to another record company as quickly as he could. I think that's interesting, but when it comes to his music I just couldn't possibly care any less. I think he's a brilliant songwriter and I love his music, and the fact that he's an asshole doesn't change that a bit.
All I really mean by "good music" is music that you like. I was responding to a comment saying that the folks at DailyKos were promoting the record "while holding their nose" because they don't like country music. That just baffles me. If you don't like the music, don't listen to the music. I don't like their music and I'm certainly not going to go and buy their CD because I like their politics, nor would I stop listening to it if I didn't like their politics. Wagner's anti-semitism does not diminish the brilliance of his music. Mel Gibson's lunatic religious beliefs won't make me enjoy his movies any more or less than I otherwise would have. These people are entertainers, not scholars. If they entertain me, they have done the only job I have asked them to do.