NOT "SO WRONG" - NEIL YOUNG

There's a new book out called So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq by a writer named Greg Mitchell. It's mostly about how the mainstream media cowered before the Rove/Cheney/Bush II administration though much of the current gulf war. The book cites a few journalists who didn't back down, you can read an article by Mitchell here.

Alongside real journalists, noted conservative commentator and ice cream flavor Stephen Colbert was mentioned, as was Neil Young, mainly thanks to his Living With War album. Which reminded me, I really am looking forward to Neil's doc from Crosby Stills Nash & Young's 2006 tour, Deja Vu. I wonder if any of the people who criticized/booed/damned him now realize that, hey, he had a point. I recently read an interview with Serj Tankian of System Of A Down, a very well informed artist and humanist. In the days after 9/11, he wrote an essay called "Understanding Oil," and was called a traitor, and several radio stations dropped his music. (Read the essay here.) Now, he says, people apologize to him and admit that they were wrong to attack him.

Back to Neil's Living With War: I don't think it holds up as well as, say, "Ohio," or even "Rocking In The Free World," but I'm glad he said what he did.