Mr. Bush's iPod is heavy on traditional country singers like George Jones, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney. He has selections by Van Morrison, whose "Brown Eyed Girl" is a Bush favorite, and by John Fogerty, most predictably "Centerfield," which was played at Texas Rangers games when Mr. Bush was an owner and is still played at ballparks all over America. ("Oh, put me in coach, I'm ready to play today.")In other news, I'm not aware Arthur Sulzberger Jr. has denied being a pet-abusing, nose-hair picking litterer.
The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist during the 2004 campaign. Among them are "Circle Back" by John Hiatt, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" by Joni Mitchell and "My Sharona," the 1979 song by the Knack that Joe Levy, a deputy managing editor at Rolling Stone in charge of music coverage, cheerfully branded "suggestive if not outright filthy" in an interview last week. . .
As for an analysis of Mr. Bush's playlist, Mr. Levy of Rolling Stone started out with this: "One thing that's interesting is that the president likes artists who don't like him."
Mr. Levy was referring to Mr. Fogerty, who was part of the anti-Bush "Vote for Change" concert tour across the United States last fall. Mr. McKinnon, who once wrote songs for Kris Kristofferson's music publishing company, responded in an e-mail message that "if any president limited his music selection to pro-establishment musicians, it would be a pretty slim collection."
Nonetheless, Mr. McKinnon said that Mr. Bush had not gone so far as to include on his playlist "Fortunate Son," the angry anti-Vietnam war song about who has to go to war that Mr. Fogerty sang when he was with Creedence Clearwater Revival. ("I ain't no senator's son ... Some folks are born silver spoon in hand.") As the son of a two-term congressman and a United States Senate candidate, Mr. Bush won a coveted spot with the Texas Air National Guard to avoid combat in Vietnam.
(via The Corner)
4 comments:
yes, it is stupid, but the same crap about music micro-analysis was written in the NYT in an op-ed piece against Hillary Clinton during her campaign for Senate. At a fund raiser, they played Billy Joel's "captain jack" when they were supposed to play "in a New York state of mind." The op-ed said something about how Hillary was endorsing drug use and how dare she play a song by Billy Joel who was a 'this or that.' Stupid op-eds cut both ways.
1) Do you have a link to the NY Times op-ed? Because -- I'd like to gauge the accuracy of your characterization.
2) Assuming, arguendo, your description, such an op-ed would be stupid--but the Bumiller piece was far more egregious, for two reasons.
a) As you tell it, the Times elevated a mistake into policy. Dumb, for sure, but so long as the Times reported the facts (wrong cut played) and their conclusion (the mistake revealed some underlying policy) readers easily could reach their own conclusions about the event. Not so with Bumiller's piece, which dripped with contempt (implied hypocrisy for listening to a song some irrelevant lefty believes is "suggestive if not outright filthy") and forced non-sequiturs (TANG reference).
b) As you're repeatedly argued, op-eds and news reporting are different. Editorials have no pretense of neutrality, while reporting is supposedly objective. Neither the Times article about Hillary (assuming the accuracy of your description) nor Bumiller's article were neutral. But because it was news, not opinion, only Bumiller's piece claimed to be objective.
I'm not sure why you're fixated on disproving left-wing media bias. And I have no idea what would convince you--respected studies from academia?; other bloggers?; the fact that the New York Times hasn't endorsed a Republican for President in 50 years? I've presented analysis backed by links and citations. You've presented your opinions. Opinion is fine--but not very persuasive absent sources and syllogisms.
No, I don't have a link, sorry. I remember reading it, that is why it was so paraphrased.
And I NEVER said the the NYT did not have a liberal bias. I DID SAY that your methods for proving a liberal bias were wrong. To quote myself, "You may be right, the NYT may be liberal, but you can't prove it by your reasoning." Which I still stand by. Your reasoning wouldn't stand up for two seconds under a scientific peer review. (remember that while I may sound obnoxious/snotty from time to time, this is all meant to be friendly banter).
You used two op-ed pieces out over 36,000 written over a ten year period. Let me try to explain it like this... Lets say you have a barrel of 36,000 ping pong balls. Now, you take a biased source (national review) who wants to prove to you that that barrel is full of blue ping pong balls. They stick their head in the barrel for a while and eventually come out with two blue ping pong balls and proclaim, "We have no proven that by showing you these two blue ping pong balls, that the entire barrel contains only blue ping pong balls." For me, that is not enough proof. You are going to have to show me a LOT more. And in addition, since I put my own hand in the barrel quite often (as in read the NYT), I have been pulling out a lot of red, orange, purple, and the occasional sandalwood ping pong ball.
I will agree with you that you probably will pull out more blue than red ping pong balls, but not nearly as many as you believe. I have always admitted that the NYTs tilts slightly to the left, but not as much as most Conservatives believe it does. You probably feels Fox News is fairly objective and fair, where I see a 24 hour propaganda machine. For fun, I used to watch Bill O'Reily with a pad and pencil and count the number of times they flat out lied (seriously, the man really has a problem with just making crap up). It is all about where you sit as to your view of the field.
And no, the article you are refering to is not NEWS, not is it intended to be viewed as news. Its a byline. It is meant to be witty and entertaining, not considered to be 'hard hitting' and 'fact driven'. It's an article about an iPod list, for god's sake.
And speaking of earlier posts, you will have to explain to me why the Schiavo case and the Texas law allowing hospitals to pull the tube on indigent patients is different. Is there a culture of life or not?
No, I don't have a link, sorry. I remember reading it, that is why it was so paraphrased.
And I NEVER said the the NYT did not have a liberal bias. I DID SAY that your methods for proving a liberal bias were wrong. To quote myself, "You may be right, the NYT may be liberal, but you can't prove it by your reasoning." Which I still stand by. Your reasoning wouldn't stand up for two seconds under a scientific peer review. (remember that while I may sound obnoxious/snotty from time to time, this is all meant to be friendly banter).
You used two op-ed pieces out over 36,000 written over a ten year period. Let me try to explain it like this... Lets say you have a barrel of 36,000 ping pong balls. Now, you take a biased source (national review) who wants to prove to you that that barrel is full of blue ping pong balls. They stick their head in the barrel for a while and eventually come out with two blue ping pong balls and proclaim, "We have no proven that by showing you these two blue ping pong balls, that the entire barrel contains only blue ping pong balls." For me, that is not enough proof. You are going to have to show me a LOT more. And in addition, since I put my own hand in the barrel quite often (as in read the NYT), I have been pulling out a lot of red, orange, purple, and the occasional sandalwood ping pong ball.
I will agree with you that you probably will pull out more blue than red ping pong balls, but not nearly as many as you believe. I have always admitted that the NYTs tilts slightly to the left, but not as much as most Conservatives believe it does. You probably feels Fox News is fairly objective and fair, where I see a 24 hour propaganda machine. For fun, I used to watch Bill O'Reily with a pad and pencil and count the number of times they flat out lied (seriously, the man really has a problem with just making crap up). It is all about where you sit as to your view of the field.
And no, the article you are refering to is not NEWS, not is it intended to be viewed as news. Its a byline. It is meant to be witty and entertaining, not considered to be 'hard hitting' and 'fact driven'. It's an article about an iPod list, for god's sake.
And speaking of earlier posts, you will have to explain to me why the Schiavo case and the Texas law allowing hospitals to pull the tube on indigent patients is different. Is there a culture of life or not?
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