Ronstadt the rabble-rouser

Linda Ronstadt was fired from a gig at a Las Vegas casino on Saturday night after praising filmmaker Michael Moore, then frog-marched out of the place. In this article, the casino management defends its actions, saying the problem was that she "upset" the audience so much to the point where they angrily tore down her posters and (according to the AP story on Salon.com) "tossed cocktails into the air." My God, she made them so mad they spilled their drinks!

Undaunted, she pulled the same stunt the next night. A San Diego critic wrote this account of Ronstadt "splitting the audience in two" after she dedicated her hit "Desperado" to the portly documentarist.

That's swell -- but I think it's just one entertainer speaking out about... another entertainer. I wonder if people would have been as exercised if she had taken it upon herself to speak out directly against Bush or the Iraq war, rather than simply praising another entertainer for doing so.