The drivel went down to NewsBusters
December 03, 2009 1:15 pm ET by Simon Maloy
Way back in 2007, Media Research Center president L. Brent Bozell III wrote a column chastising the media for giving celebrities -- liberal celebrities like Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn, in particular -- platforms from which to opine on matters of national significance. Bozell's argument, in a nutshell, was that these celebrities, for all their passion and verbosity, are no more "mentally impressive than a plate of mashed potatoes."
Well, Bozell must have a very soft definition of "mentally impressive," as NewsBusters announced this morning that their newest blogger is "legendary country and rock musician" Charlie Daniels, best known for his 1979 hit, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Daniels' lesser-known works include crypto-Confederate anthems like "The South's Gonna Do It Again," and charmingly offensive anti-Muslim ditties like "This Ain't No Rag, It's a Flag." Just to dispel any doubt as to what kind of "rag" Daniels was singing about, the first line of the song helpfully explains that "we don't wear it on our heads."
And fittingly enough, Daniels' first post for NewsBusters deals with alleged Ft. Hood shooter Nadal Malik Hassan and the threat of radical Islam. You can read it if you want -- he seems to have culled most of his arguments from the comments sections of third-rate conservative blogs and offers nothing new, thought-provoking, or rational. In truth, all you need to know about Daniels' thoughts on America's relationship with the Muslim world can be gleaned from these two sentences: "I know that all Muslims are not terrorists. I have met some who seemed like fine people." That's very big of you, Charlie, to allow the possibility that some of the Muslims you've met could be fine people.
I would also recommend checking out the Soapbox blog on Daniels' website, in which he opines on various political matters. The "Open Letter to Immigrants" was a particularly fun and patronizingly offensive read ("We have our own laws in this country, some will make sense to you and some won't.")
If Bozell considers Baldwin and Penn to be on par with a plate of mashed potatoes, then Daniels is something like day-old grits.

















Speaking of Sean Penn, it turns out that he was RIGHT in his assessment of Iraqi WMD, or lack thereof. I wonder if any of the Talk Radio Troglodytes have apologized for calling him a traitor....
Who am I kidding?
You're being too kind. I put Charlie Daniels in the same intellectual category as Joe the Plumber's plumber's crack.
:-)
I saw Janeane Garafalo a while back on Bill Maher's show, and she seems a lot more informed and intelligent than anybody I've seen on Fox pretending to be a journalist.
Maybe that's what drives them nuts, leftys who already have full-time jobs and some public exposure are better than most right wing pundits and anchormen. Kind of sad that they have to counter with washed up B-listers from the 70s.
And has every white person he's ever met been a "fine" person? Or has he maybe known a whitey who might have been a criminal? Has he read the news recently? Lots of black and white Christians and atheists and Jews commit crimes.
It's really unfair to generalize about any religion. It's not the religion that causes people to go bonkers. It's the individual's reaction to the world that causes their bad behavior.
But the other thing that this article reminded me of was that Liz Cheney is a celebrity, because of her father. She doesn't have the qualifications or the job experience to get the airtime she's been getting, yet she gets it. If Newsbusters has an issue with celebrities getting too much airtime and getting credibility they don't deserve, then they should have been jumping up and down mad over Liz Cheney's exposure.
Somehow I doubt that has happened.
The reason for this is very practical. They are assured that none of their faithful viewers, listeners, or readers will ever have to stop and ask themselves " Huh? What are they talkin' 'bout?"
tooling along in my Chevrolet took on a number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kB7OR161-U
Same guy who performed "Uneasy Rider!"
What is it with has-been jingoistic phony "patriotic" performers that they have to end up far-right wingers?
"They babies, they babies"!
And I still stand by my thoughts that police department in Killeen needs more range time...