On April 24, 2003, with the Iraq War barely a month old, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw asked Bush about the boycott of the Dixie Chicks. The President responded that the singers "can say what they want to say," but he added that his supporters then had an equal right to punish the singers for their comments.
"They shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out," Bush said. "Freedom is a two-way street."
In that way, Bush made clear that he saw nothing wrong with his followers hurting Americans who disagreed with him or who caused him trouble.
As CBS's "60 Minutes" reported in a segment on May 14, 2006, the Dixie Chicks were still haunted by the pro-Bush boycott. "They have already paid a huge price for their outspokenness, and not just monetarily," said correspondent Steve Kroft. Sometimes, Bush supporters even turned to threats of violence.
During one tour, lead singer Maines was warned, "You will be shot dead at your show in Dallas," forcing her to perform there under tight police protection, said the group's banjo player, Emily Robison. In another incident, a shotgun was pointed at a radio station's van because it had the group's picture on the side, Robison said.
'Whoa, Dude!'
Other celebrities who opposed the Iraq War, such as Sean Penn, faced similar treatment. Bush's supporters gloated in 2003 when Penn lost acting work because he had criticized the rush to war.
"Sean Penn is fired from an acting job and finds out that actions bring about consequences. Whoa, dude!" chortled pro-Bush MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough.
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, cited as justification for Penn's punishment the actor's comment during a pre-war trip to Iraq that "I cannot conceive of any reason why the American people and the world would not have shared with them the evidence that they [Bush administration officials] claim to have of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." [MSNBC transcript, May 18, 2003]
In other words, no matter how reasonable or accurate the concerns expressed by Bush's Iraq War critics, they could expect retaliation.
While highlighting pro-Bush shows like Scarborough's, MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's program because it allowed on too many Iraq War critics. In 2003, MSNBC was determined to wrap itself in the American flag as tightly as Fox News did.
With Bush's quiet encouragement, his supporters also denigrated skeptical U.S. allies, such as France by pouring French wine into gutters and renaming "French fries" as "freedom fries."
Bush's backers also mocked U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix for not finding WMD in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. CNBC's right-wing comic Dennis Miller likened Blix's U.N. inspectors to the cartoon character Scooby Doo, racing fruitlessly around Iraq in vans.
As it turned out, of course, the Iraq War critics were right. The problem wasn't the incompetence of Blix but the fact that Bush's claims about Iraq's WMD were false, as Bush's arms inspectors David Kay and Charles Duelfer concluded after the invasion.
Political leaders who spoke out faced ridicule, too. In September 2002, when former Vice President Al Gore presented a thoughtful critique of the dangers from "preemptive wars" in general and the Iraq invasion in particular, he was met with a solid wall of denunciations from Fox News to the Washington Post's Op-Ed page.
Some epithets came directly from Bush partisans. Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke dismissed Gore as a "political hack." An administration source told the Washington Post that Gore was simply "irrelevant," a theme that would be repeated often in the days after Gore's speech. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2002]
"They shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out," Bush said. "Freedom is a two-way street."
In that way, Bush made clear that he saw nothing wrong with his followers hurting Americans who disagreed with him or who caused him trouble.
As CBS's "60 Minutes" reported in a segment on May 14, 2006, the Dixie Chicks were still haunted by the pro-Bush boycott. "They have already paid a huge price for their outspokenness, and not just monetarily," said correspondent Steve Kroft. Sometimes, Bush supporters even turned to threats of violence.
'Whoa, Dude!'
Other celebrities who opposed the Iraq War, such as Sean Penn, faced similar treatment. Bush's supporters gloated in 2003 when Penn lost acting work because he had criticized the rush to war.
"Sean Penn is fired from an acting job and finds out that actions bring about consequences. Whoa, dude!" chortled pro-Bush MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough.
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, cited as justification for Penn's punishment the actor's comment during a pre-war trip to Iraq that "I cannot conceive of any reason why the American people and the world would not have shared with them the evidence that they [Bush administration officials] claim to have of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." [MSNBC transcript, May 18, 2003]
In other words, no matter how reasonable or accurate the concerns expressed by Bush's Iraq War critics, they could expect retaliation.
While highlighting pro-Bush shows like Scarborough's, MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's program because it allowed on too many Iraq War critics. In 2003, MSNBC was determined to wrap itself in the American flag as tightly as Fox News did.
With Bush's quiet encouragement, his supporters also denigrated skeptical U.S. allies, such as France by pouring French wine into gutters and renaming "French fries" as "freedom fries."
Bush's backers also mocked U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix for not finding WMD in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. CNBC's right-wing comic Dennis Miller likened Blix's U.N. inspectors to the cartoon character Scooby Doo, racing fruitlessly around Iraq in vans.
As it turned out, of course, the Iraq War critics were right. The problem wasn't the incompetence of Blix but the fact that Bush's claims about Iraq's WMD were false, as Bush's arms inspectors David Kay and Charles Duelfer concluded after the invasion.
Political leaders who spoke out faced ridicule, too. In September 2002, when former Vice President Al Gore presented a thoughtful critique of the dangers from "preemptive wars" in general and the Iraq invasion in particular, he was met with a solid wall of denunciations from Fox News to the Washington Post's Op-Ed page.
Some epithets came directly from Bush partisans. Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke dismissed Gore as a "political hack." An administration source told the Washington Post that Gore was simply "irrelevant," a theme that would be repeated often in the days after Gore's speech. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2002]
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