Your guide to the MSM

Brought to you by Southern Belle:

What I find to be the most comical about both the [NBA All-Star Tim] Hardaway situation and the [Dixie Chicks' Natalie] Maines situation is the way that the two have been dealt with in the media. In 2003, Maines was portrayed as a poor victim of big business and a poor victim of censorship. Hardaway, on the other hand, is different. I am not hearing a peep about his right to free speech. In fact, other than hearing about what happened on the news, all I hear are crickets chirping about the subject (aside from talk radio, of course).

Where is the outrage in the media over the subject? Where are the Hollywood pundits on this issue? Why the silence? I’ll tell you why. It was the subject matter. Maines was criticizing the President, whom Hollywood and the media despise (it’s a bit of sour grapes over their golden boy, Al Gore, losing in 2000). Hardaway; however, spoke out against homosexuals, who are the Democrats’ newest pet project.

Yup. Her post reminded me of one I did on the Dixie Chicks, quite a while back:

I can only imagine the panic at the record label as the group imploded, and the goose that laid golden eggs laid, well, a goose egg. The record execs knew that in 1998, the Dixie Chicks sold more CDs that all other country artists combined.

I was one of the folks that got heartily sick of them. First, there was the sucking up to a foreign audience during a time of crisis. But whatever, that would have blown over. But Natalie Maines simply couldn't let it go, for example in the 2003 Der Spiegel interview ("We don't feel a part of the country scene any longer ...").

I feel for the record execs, who must have bled trying to do damage control. They understood what the Chicks seemed not to: there is a song played every day of the year on every Country radio station in the land: The Star Spangled Banner.

Typical wordy Borepatch post; Jennifer says it shorter (and better):

Shut your pie hole and dance, monkey!

But Southern Belle is right - the MSM will stick up for those in the "Angels" category, and will try to tar and feather those in the "Devil" category. Qui bono? That's all you need to know to sort out the bias.