March 16, 2003

Sunday March 16, 2003 • Howard Tayler

I just read an article covering the fact that the Dixie Chicks apologized to George W. Bush for remarks they made about him in England. The CNN coverage is here. To sum up, while in London they said that they (who are from Texas) were embarrassed that the President was from Texas, and they said this in the context of their pro-peace/anti-war stance.

Radio stations began boycotting their music, and 76% of their fans responded to a radio poll in Atlanta with "If I could, I'd take my CDs back."

At which point the head croonette for the Dixie Chicks began apologizing.

I've decided, in light of this, that the Pixie Wimps are some of the worst people on the planet. They had a cause that they believed in, and they used their position to advance that cause (which is what positions of power are for). Then, when they got hit in the pocketbook, they backed down. Mercenaries have more integrity than that. The only person in recent memory I can think of who had less integrity was Trent Lott.

(Note that to this point I have NOT stated my personal position on a U.S.-led military operation in Iraq.)

Let's compare the Hissie Fitz to President Bush for a moment. Bush has a cause that he believes in, and he has stuck with it despite the fact that a large number of people are campaigning very actively in opposition to that cause. If he were interested in advancing his own personal agenda, I strongly suspect he'd be handling things differently. American Presidents are elected on slim margins of popularity -- never slimmer, in Dubya's case -- and they tend to try to do popular things as a result.

George W. Bush's continued advancement of this cause, right or wrong, leads me to conclude that he is a man of integrity. And for the record, President Jacques "I-know-Americans-will-be-mocking-the-French-for-years-over-this" Chirac seems to be the same way.

(Note: I STILL have not stated my personal position on the war matter. Are we clear on this?)

I suppose my point is as follows: we all believe that Good should triumph over Evil, and although we can usually agree on definitions of those, much of the time we cannot (and for those of you who are about to lambast me saying that there is no Good nor Evil, you're just proving me right so shut up). It is in those times that we end up segregated in political camps -- a segregation with ever-shifting borders, to be sure. The best we can hope for is that the leaders of those camps are motivated by their beliefs rather than by their bank accounts: men and women of integrity, rather than cultural icons whose morals will fall prey to popularity, or whose ideals can be exchanged for a refund at Tower Records.