"Mr. Osbourne's shrewd answer."

Ben Ratliff, writing about Ozzfest in the New York Times, ridiculously garbles the reference to Bush's "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed" commercial:

[G]oofy old Ozzy Osbourne, whose political views have been largely unknown up to this point, made the strongest political statement of the night, and the strongest music. ... "War Pigs," the opener, was the best song of the set and the entire day. To double the force of the music, the giant screens next to the stage showed pictures of President Bush juxtaposed with pictures of Hitler.

It may have been Mr. Osbourne's shrewd answer to the Bush campaign's recent Internet advertisement "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed," which sets film of various Democratic leaders fulminating against films of Hitler fulminating.

I can't believe the Times is still printing descriptions of the Bush commercial that don't reveal that it was a Moveon.org ad that originally edited Hitler images in with Bush. The Bush campaign's point was that it's crazy or irresponsible to use Hitler images to make an argument against Bush. It never likened the "fulminating Democrats" to Hitler! Ozzfest is back to doing the same thing that the Moveon.org ad did: likening Bush to Hitler. It's not coming up with anything new and certainly not anything "shrewd."



And I doubt very much that we can conclude that we now know what "goofy old Ozzy Osbourne" thinks about politics (or even if he thinks about politics). Anyone who's seen "The Osbournes" knows that the visual trappings of his concerts are inflicted on him. Remember the bubble machine?