"The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American."

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"America has entered one of its periods of historical madness," argues author John Le Carré, who suggests that the current drive by conservatives in Congress and their media allies to search out and destroy dissent is "worse than McCarthyism." That may sound extreme to some, but it certainly must ring true for Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines, whose mild criticism of President Bush in the days before the war with Iraq began has made the group target No. 1 for the Elite Republican Guardians of patriotic propriety."

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Entertaining McCarthyism
FULLY CLOTHED OR TOTALLY NUDE, CHICKS STILL WHISTLING DIXIE
Scorn in the USA: 'The Boss' says trio getting raw, un-American deal