As always, I hate to introduce logic into a perfectly good emotional argument, but I just can't help myself.

1. Maines made her statement re: Bush overseas, apparently in reaction to a great deal of Anti-American sentiment. Free speech, no problem here.

2. She almost immediately apologized for her remarks, due in a large measure to the backlash from her primary audience.

Therefore, she either:

a) did not mean what she originally said, but let her mouth run away from her in response to her immediate environment, making her an unthinking idiot who has no true opinion of her own.

b)meant her original statement, but was too cowardly to stick to her moral views once she realized how much her pocketbook was going to hurt.

Idiot or Coward. Them's the choices, folks. (And don't present the good old "mispoke" argument, cuz that would be choice A).

I have no problem with a celeb using their popularity to espouse their point of view, as long as they stick to it. I thought Richard Gere was extremely couragous at the Concert for New York when he spoke of responding to 9-11 with peace, not with violence. There was immediate negative feedback, which he verbally recognized, but he didn't back down. Freedom of speech has consequences, especially if you espouse an unpopular point of view to your source of income.

Now back to vitriol and mud-slinging.

Peace,
Blues