According to this op-ed in the Salt Lake

Tribune, the Dixie Chicks performed a bit of audio-visual self-defense at a

recent concert. While the song “Truth No. 2″ — written by Patty Griffin —

played, a collection of footage from protests past (civil rights, women’s

rights, gay rights) was shown on the screen. The lyrics go something like this:

“You don’t like the sound of the truth/Comin’ from my mouth/You say that I lack

the proof/Well baby that might be so/I might get to the end of my line/Find out

everyone was lying/I don’t think that I’m afraid anymore/Say that I would rather

die trying.”

The author of the op-ed, whose byline proclaims that he “has spent his 35-year

professional career in positions by the First Amendment,” argues that this is a

“civics lesson.” The response to the Chicks’ anti-Bush comments was, he

implies, un-American: “What seemed most moving was old film of Nazis throwing

books on bonfires, probably in the late 1930s, and the images of a steamroller

smashing hundreds of Chicks CDs.”

Two quick points. First, the fact that their concerts are still being performed

and reviewed by people like him is a clear indication that America 2003 is not

quite like Nazi Germany. Second, one would think, or at least hope, that

someone who has spent his life in journalism can distinguish between the civil

rights movement and the controversy over the Dixie Chicks.