Dixie Chicks up or down?

CNN.com - Dixie Chicks in the line of fire - May 21, 2006: "Few other stations are playing Not Ready to Make Nice, and while it has done well on iTunes, it's quite possible that in singing about their anger at people who were already livid with them and were once their target audience, the Chicks have written their own ticket to the pop-culture glue factory.
....
Programmers say that even now a heartfelt apology could help set things right with listeners, but it's not happening."

Our local tv ran a promo suggesting that the Dixie Chicks were in some kind of public relations trouble again. So I googled them and found this CNN/Time story.

But looking around, I started wondering about this portrayal. For one thing, Itunes has their new song--the one that CNN said was tanking as a "4 minute f___-you to country music" ranked in the top 100 downloaded songs. Ok, that is Itunes. But then I found this in Rolling Stone that suggests the complete opposite. According to RS, the Chicks don't really care because this album is really more rock with country influences. In fact, the story suggests that it is country music that is scared--not the Chicks. They need the Dixie Chicks more than the Dixie Chicks need country.

"Hints like that have unnerved some in the country industry,
where sales were recently reported to be down about ten percent
from 2004. From an economic perspective, it's tough to argue with
an act that has sold more than 22 million copies of its first three
major-label studio albums, according to SoundScan.

'We need them,' says Clay Hunnicutt, Clear Channel's vice
president of country programming nationwide. 'Radio is always
looking for great artists with great music, great hits.'"

It kind of makes me wonder. The CNN/Time story seems highly annecdotal and seems to have already concluded that the Chicks album will bomb. I don't really care. I will buy it anyway. But it kind of reminds me of the mainstream media's response to Stephen Colbert's bit on the president. It's as if there are certain acceptable ways and people who can criticize Bush.

I don't know. It just seemed odd.