Media Mash: The Dixie Chicks' coup

When I saw the item: NBC and CW Television bans Dixie Chicks spot, for the new documentary Shut Up and Sing, the Masher smiled... Jeez, NBC must be a fan of the Dixie Chicks and Harvey Weinstein, because the publicity surrounding the ban -- and its delicious irony -- "Network refuses to air ads for movie about artists being condemned for exercising their free speech," will no doubt spur people into the theatres. Or maybe General Electric-- NBC network's owner-- wanted to suck up to the Bushies... but why now? All the other biz elites are covering their butts by giving late money to the Democrats.

Nevertheless, the NBC claims that the network "Cannot Accept These Spots as They are Disparaging to President Bush" is so ludicrous... just about everything more than half the population says these days is disparaging to Bush. Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Company and the film's distributor, stated, "It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American."