Now that many serious people have become concerned about the “chilling effects” of the Rush Limbaugh ad boycott, I’m having some fun revisiting the media reaction to the Global War Against The Dixie Chicks. We’ve heard from Sullivan and Hitchens. Here’s Gregg Easterbrook, from a bizarre column that captures the near-fascist zeitgeist of 2003:
“One of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view,” Maines said after declaring herself “ashamed” of the president of the United States. And it’s true, one of the privileges of being an American is saying whatever damn-fool thing you please. Another privilege of being an American is ignoring damn fools, for example by refusing to play the Dixie Chicks.
Read the whole column if you want to know why I am objectively pro-meteor. Here’s more of a taste (it takes the format of a hallucinogenic mock draft with some digressions afterwards):
6. Arizona (CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN FOOTBALL-LIKE SUBSTANCE) Cardinals. HANS BLIX, United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. Since the Cards are perennially dead-last in NFL attendance, if Blix and his inspectors fanned out across Sun Devil Stadium, perhaps they could discover a paying customer. Note: in the second round of the draft, Arizona hopes to tab Blix’s seeing-eye dog.
[…]If The Bomb Was Really Smart, It Would Refuse to Blow Itself Up: Speaking of smart bombs, TMQ’s favorite is the AGM-142, which comes in versions codenamed Have Nap and Have Lite. Bombs don’t often make one think of having a nap. As for the Have Lite, maybe the Air Force can do a recruiting commercial starring the Miller Lite “catfight” babes. (“More destructive!” “Less collateral damage!”)
dmsilev
Man. It’s hard to figure out which part of that is most moronic (even by low low standards of ESPN “humor”). I’m going to go with
beltane
But, but Rush is a Great American. And he has bigger boobs than all the Dixie Chicks combined. Why do you hate Great Americans with big boobs?
cmorenc
Is this the same Gregg Easterbrook who wrote a softly skeptical book about Environmental problems “A Moment on Earth” optimistically taking a what-me-worry environmental problems are declining viewpoint? (I call him a “soft” skeptic to contrast him with “hard” (and considerably more hardheaded and willfully ignorant) skeptics like Sen. James Inhofe). ?? This guy Easterbrook is also a sportswriter/critic as well as a political pundit too?
RP
Why would you suggest that anyone read an entire Gregg Easterbrook column? Jerk.
danimal
Easterbrook’s occasional football insights (punting is for losers a lot of the time) are overwhelmed by his Beltway Centrism contrarian bs. I’m shocked he doesn’t have a Slate column.
And boycotting Rush (and his advertisers) is fine by me. It’s one of the few points of leverage we have. A successful boycott of Rush may indeed result in a more vanilla talk radio, but that is a net societal positive. I don’t understand the liberal angst over boycotts all of a sudden.
FedSec
What’s funny is the fear coming from pundits on both sides of the aisle. Apparently, boycotts are peachy as long as they don’t cause the targets to feel any palpable damage; then, it’s all about the “slippery slope” and the “chilling effects on free speech.”
Bulworth
Yeah, it was a crazy insane time. I hope we don’t see anything like it again.
4tehlulz
>Gregg Easterbrook
This is where I generally stop reading.
Bulworth
Beyond the fact that more Americans and their allies have died since that giddy time, there were a few Iraqis who died, too. But who really cares about them? FREEDOM!!
MattF
And, look, they were getting lathered up over a trio of country music singers who dared to stray into political questions. Unlike Limbaugh, for example, who was just doing his job.
Mark S.
Ugh, just from a writing standpoint, Easterbrook is the only person makes Mickey Kaus seem readable in comparison. He’s Carrot Top level unfunny, and his constant leering at cheerleaders and starlets is especially creepy when you remember he looks like this.
And his analysis is just spot-on. He pretends the Washington Wizards have a pick in the NFL Draft, proceeds to list 20 or so Hall of Famers, and says they’d still suck if they had all those guys.
Bulworth
[…]
I don’t even understand these two. But then again, I didn’t understand much of what was conveyed by our “liberal” media during this fevered period.
redshirt
Wrote in notebook: “Game over”
rlrr
@Bulworth:
The real shock is someone got paid to write that…
Trinity
Give me a break. Rush can speak as freely as he wants. I just made it clear to his sponsors that I won’t support them with my $ if they support Rush. From there, they made their own decision. This bull$hit about “chilling free speech” is a load of crap in the free market.
What a bunch of asshats.
Phil Perspective
Does anyone ever remind tools like Gregg Easterbrook to look back in their archives when they post stupid, self-contradictory stuff?
Aaron Baker
Ughh . . . Gregg Easterbrook has always been an idiot. It’s salutary, if unpleasant, to be reminded that he indulged the same brutally dismissive pro-war idiocy that Sullivan and Hitchens went in for.
Incidentally, how was Hitchens referring to the Dixie Chicks as “fucking fat slags” any different from, or better than, Rush Limbaugh re Sandra Fluke? Though estimable in some other ways, Hitchens seems to have had a major burr up his backside about women.
butler
He craps out this column every freaking week during the football season. He’s kind of like David Brooks or Friedman, except I have a tiny bit more respect for him because he churns out 40000 words a week instead of 1600.
He’s an impressive combination of moral scold, humorless “comic”, evolution denier, science-fiction denier, progress denier, and punting denier, with some occasional superficial and inconsistent football “analysis” thrown in.
He even made me feel bad for Mitt Romney, when he took him to task for “only” donating 3 million dollars to charity last year.
Also, apparently cartoonish violence is bad because of Nazis and Jews, or something.
butler
@Phil Perspective: Considering he manages to contradict himself every week, I doubt it.
Svensker
@Aaron Baker:
Name one.
Cat Lady
@redshirt:
Damn you redshirt for getting that in before me. May you never be pleasured by a cheer-babe of the week.
Mark S.
Why is punting a bad idea? If you’re on your side of the field or it’s more than two yards it is almost always a good idea. Is this the same kind of Slatean analysis that says you shouldn’t worry if your running back fumbles a lot because the offense recovers 50% of the fumbles?
Villago Delenda Est
Don’t need a meteor to solve the Easterbrook problem.
Just a tumbrel.
New Yorker
Ah, spring 2003, when I was an underemployed 23-year-old working as an administrative assistant at a construction site, and shaking my head, knowing the Iraq War would result in disaster because the Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurds would start killing each other as soon as Saddam Hussein was gone. OK, I was wrong about the Kurds getting involved in the killing.
That’s when I learned how dysfunctional the whole media-political complex in this country is. I understood Iraq better than Bill Kristol, and yet he was the one on Sunday Morning talk shows and with columns in the Times and Washington Post. And he still is, despite being a titanic fool who has been disastrously wrong about everything.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bulworth:
Chickenhawk vermin like Easterbrook deserve the coward’s 1000 deaths.
They are utterly unfit to so much as lick the boots of American soldiers.
Judge Crater
I went to the Mark S. link to see what the guy looked like. Then browsed the interview and saw his response to the question: “Who’s your favorite fictional character?”
His response – Milo Minderbender from ‘Catch 22’.
Oh, for Christ’s sake what a maroon! Talk about arrested development. Every adolescent boy in the sixties thought Milo Minderbender was soo cool. So hip and so cynical. ARRRGG.
rlrr
@Judge Crater:
Milo Minderbender was not exactly meant to be a sympathetic character..
Larkspur
If you are disinclined to pop over to read Gregg Easterbrook, despite its meteor-summoning potential, you could go over to Charles Pierce’s place and read The Liberation of Willard Romney: A Game Plan. Just don’t let Mitt read it. He could get ideas.
That Dixie Chicks documentary – Shut Up And Sing – is on my top ten list for best docs ever. The whole thing still kinda breaks my heart.
rlrr
@Larkspur:
Apparently, his current one, which can be fairly summarized as “I will drag my balls a mile over some ground glass on live television if it’ll get me 1,000 votes from you snake-handling dimwits,” is not resonating with the snake-handling dimwits in question.
— Charles Pierce
Aaron Baker
“@Aaron Baker:
Though estimable in some other ways, Hitchens
Name one.”
Well, I mostly agree with him about religious belief and practice. His insistence on not treating religion with deference was a very good thing, especially in a country as religion-besotted as the US. Maybe that made less of an impression in Sweden.
I’d also mention his efforts on behalf of an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
MattF
@Larkspur: Pierce’s piece is pretty funny, but I can’t help but wonder how the Buyer of Mitt’s soul would react.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Trinity: The free market exists to allow us peons to be
subjected toenlightened by the very insightful thinking of those that are currently members of the media (legacy hires are also covered.) We should be grateful that the media cares enough about us to spare us from the unfiltered and uncouth views of just anybloggerperson. This is why they must defend Rush’s right to be on the air, get paid as much money as possible and therefor you and I can never question any of this again. And now, a story about a Lohan.Capri
@Aaron Baker:
If all Rush did was use a few insulting terms, then it wouldn’t be different. But, Rush didn’t stop at “word choice” – he talked about it non-stop for 3 days. Did Hitchens ask to see tapes of the Dixie Chicks having sex? Did he discuss their sex life at all? Even once?
There does seem to be a gender divide in the response to Rush’s outburst (at least in the folks I’ve talked to about this). Men seem to “get” that calling someone a whore is an insult, and mainly react to the insulting words. Women are most repulsed by the ongoing discussion of how much sex women on birth control must be having, and Rush wanting to see videos of it.
I think it’s interesting that all the discussion on this seems to assume that it is single women that need birth control. Certainly all the aspirin-between-the-knees talk assumes that. But if 90% of married women didn’t use birth control, then the Duggers wouldn’t have a reality TV show because there would be a few families that size on every block. When I was a little kid, the girls from Catholic families I played with usually had at least 5 other siblings if not more. Those huge families are a thing of the past – why do you suppose that is?
Hill Dweller
@Larkspur: This morning alone, Romney has said enough stupid shit to get laughed out of a sane country. Alas…
Obama is to blame for high gas prices because “the world believes that America is not going to have the energy we need”? WTF?
rlrr
@Capri:
Those huge families are a thing of the past – why do you suppose that is?
“We’re not sure why, but it’s somehow Obama’s fault”
— talk radio and Fox “News”
rlrr
@Capri:
I went to a Catholic university. Many of my classmates came from large families. None of my classmates have large families.
WereBear
Hey, I was drinking blueberry tea! Good thing I wasn’t sipping it at the time.
Larkspur
@MattF: I’m beginning to suspect that Willard did in fact already say precisely what Pierce outlined, and then as punishment, that event was snipped right out of the space-time continuum, and now Willard must continue to say only the most ridiculous, contemptible nonsense forever, for time and all eternity, while retaining only the dimmest perception that he screwed it all up somehow.
slag
Have we focused on the original sin of ridiculousness in comparing what the Dixie Chicks said with what Rush Limbaugh spent three days doing (and what the right continues to do) yet? Because that’s some serious stalkeresque shit there. Not that such things matter to these people, obviously. But they should.
redshirt
@Cat Lady: And no occasional cheer dudes for you!
Rita R.
“Chilling effects”? Which of the Villagers are saying that bs?
One of the arguments in favor of free speech is that “bad” (for lack of a better word) ideas and speech will be exposed to the public and be rejected by them. Well, the public is speaking loud and clear in Rush’s case. What argument can be made for why this is not exactly how our system is supposed to work? Rush wasn’t even making a political argument, it was hate speech and slander. That crap needs to be chilled. The Constitution doesn’t provide for a right to an advertiser-paid microphone. Rush has every right to stand on a street corner and start talking without fear of being thrown in jail for what he says. Once that changes, then there’ll be a problem.
jibeaux
The language of “chilling effect” is language taken from Supreme Court jurisprudence about STATE ACTION. If you say some dumb shit and people look at you chilly and walk away chilling your talking to them further, that’s just their own damn free speech and actions. There’s nothing even approaching a Constitutional right or even a desirable outcome in insisting that people pretend the dumbshit things you say are worth listening to and engaging with.
Russ
Looks like Rush is going to have a lot of “free” speech seeing as no one is willing to pay him to speak for 3 hours on the radio
rlrr
@slag:
What would happen if Joe Nobody had written public blog posts saying the same sort of things about a woman?
TheColourfield
Drew Magary from Deadspin sums it up every week during the NFL season with a section of his column entitled “Gregg Easterbrook is a haughty dipshit”
A few years back on kissingsuzykolber he a great parody of the TMQ by Easterbrook.
slag
@Rita R.:
Yes. Yes indeed. I have no problem whatsoever with chilling that crap. This issue lies outside of the free speech arena altogether. You don’t get to shout fire in a crowded theater; you don’t get to verbally abuse and threaten a woman without consequences. I’m skeptical that even the ACLU would defend Limbaugh here.
Amir Khalid
@beltane: I don’t hate all Great Americans with big boobs. For example, I rather like Dolly Parton, who is a renowned singer and songwriter. But the only thing great about Rush Limbaugh is his width.
slag
@rlrr: You mean besides from a MOORE AWARD? Probably a lot of other stuff that would make Sullivan tsk tsk in an unintentionally ironic fashion.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@slag: If I remember correctly, though, it wouldn’t be the first time the ACLU helped Rush.
Barry
@FedSec: “What’s funny is the fear coming from pundits on both sides of the aisle. Apparently, boycotts are peachy as long as they don’t cause the targets to feel any palpable damage; then, it’s all about the “slippery slope” and the “chilling effects on free speech.” ”
‘Both sides’?
Xecky Gilchrist
@Bulworth: captures the near-fascist zeitgeist of 2003:
Thank you for this. I think it’s important to have occasional – and maybe far more common, now – reminders of how awful that time was. Right now it’s much too easy for cons and liberals who bought into the whole thing at the time to brush it off.
I get particular stonewalling when I mention how creepy the attacks on the Dixie Chicks were. You can tell you’ve hit a nerve when people get that weird Libertarian smarty-playing-dumb thing going e.g. with the hate rallies to run over Dixie Chicks CDs with bulldozers, mentioning that that’s a threat along the lines of burning in effigy or whatever you get “why do you perceive a threat in the way persons behave toward an inanimate physical object?” or “If people dislike what the Dixie Chicks have to say, they may simply choose not to support them” and such.
Joel
What is it with surnames containing “Brook”?
slag
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): No, it wouldn’t be the first time.
But I love how all these people wringing their hands over the potential “chilling effect” of boycotting Rush Limbaugh apparently don’t give a damn about the potential “chilling effect” of practically stalking a woman who has the temerity to go before Congress to voice her opinion.
Apparently no one gives a shit about you if you’re just some lady who goes to school and has a brain. You must have a multimillion dollar bank account and an oversized microphone to be worthy of concern from the mighty windbags in this country. Fuckers all.
Cris (without an H)
The most affecting thing in that Easterbrook column is an incidental: this photo of George W. Bush holding his newborn baby twin girls. The man looks positively human. Not the kind of guy I want to share a beer with, the kind of guy I want to smile at and say “congratulations” and maybe even hug.
This is hard for me, guys. The man has become such a shit-eating demon in my mind, it’s really weird to find my icy warlock heart melting as though Kris Kringle has given me a choo-choo.
honus
@rlrr: I come from a catholic father and mother. I have 5 siblings, as did both my father and mother. Two of my siblings have three children, and the other four have two. I went to catholic school who came from families 6, 8 and even 10 kids. I can’t think of any of them that have more than three children. None of my 8 cousins (my mom’s first cousin’s kids) have more than two kids. (and they are mostly ardent devout catholic wingnuts)
Hell, my mom’s youngest brother, who got married (to another catholic) in the 1960s, only has three kids.
Rita R.
@slag:
Damn. Straight.
honus
For the record, the Arizona Cardinals went to the Super Bowl a couple of years after that.
maya
Just think of Rushbo as a Chixie Dick, then:”… it’s perfectly legit for other citizens to speak out, boycott, blog, and so on”. Right, Sully?
Comrade Dread
In all fairness to them, that Dixie Chicks incident was like eight years ago. To political pundits with the memories of mayflies, who view St. Reagan as a figure from historic myth, we might as well be talking about an obscure political incident between two intelligent dinosaurs from the Triassic age.
Aaron Baker
Capri:
I’ll grant that Hitchens’s performance was less leering than Limbaugh’s, so I’d have to admit on reflection that it was “less bad”; but would Hitchens ever have irrelevantly dismissed men he disagreed with as “fat slags”? I often think “misogynist” is thrown around too readily; but it’s hard to conclude that the word is wrong when applied to Hitchens. And a reflexive hostility for 1/2 the human race is still a pretty atrocious thing, even if you have less of it than Limbaugh.
Svensker
@Cris (without an H):
Just remember all the Iraqi parents holding their dead babies. That oughtta ice it right up again.
taylormattd
Greg Easterbrook is the stupidest fucking man on the face of the Earth. Jesus christ I hate him. Ugh.
And this is why you are right about the meteor.
Agitating for magical better democrats is fucking dumb in the face of this media.
The Other Chuck
@Cris (without an H):
George W. Bush has one redeeming quality nowadays: he’s had the good grace to keep his mouth shut, rather unlike Cheney and his darkspawn.
Schlemizel
@Aaron Baker:
Better, try to imagine l’ll andy’s reaction to someone dismissing his opinion as that of a “limp-wristed fruit”. Bet he would have a problem with that which would escape him if that sort of thing was done against a group he is not part of
Schlemizel
@The Other Chuck:
He proved his point – got reelected, better than daddy!
Plus, he had to put his poor self out for 8 whole years. Poor boy did more work pretending to be President for 8 years than he had in the entirety of the rest of his useless life. Now he is drained & just need to sleep it off.
mike in dc
They could replace him with Judge Easterbrook(or, heck, Judge Posner) and it’d be a vast improvement. Two of the few conservative justices whose opinions I can actually stand to read.
Capri
@Aaron Baker:
That’s the point I think – there’s a lot of misogynist crap floating around out there. What Rush did went way, way, way beyond what is regarded as “humor” in many circles. Nobody is claiming he’s the only misogynist in the public sphere. He’s by far the creepiest, though.
mainmati
@Mark S.: Did you mean NBA? Wizards are a basketball team.
Thymezone
Uh, the Cardinals have not played in Sun Devil Stadium for years. They were indeed struggling to meet attendance targets in that monstrosity of a stadium, but not now. Their average attendance is just a hair short of sold out of the 63k seat capacity of the new digs.
So I don’t get the point of the relevant blurb. Now they have an air-conditioned palace and filled seats and lots more money to spend on … whatever they spend it on. And lo and behold, they went to the Super Bowl and delivered a courtesy game to the overrated Steelers just recently. In case everyone here forgot already. Or was too drunk at the time.