I never cared who won Season 8.  Although I am a Kris fan, I would have been happy if Adam won.  It is the way the media presented the story and all the crazy things that were said about Kris that probably still effects his career today that makes me come back to it.

Yes because Toby’s politics are sooooo important to his judging just like Ellen being gay was. I love how hypocrtical liberals are. Only their points of view seem to matter.

Did you read the part where I said I would have given him a chance? Or are you just willfully ignoring what I wrote in order to take a swipe at liberals? Because I said in my post that in the end I WOULD have given him a chance.

That’s a pretty major and sweeping generalization you made about “liberals” I could do the same about conservatives, except that I realize that people are too complex to be put in a box.

Trying to think what might have attracted AI to Toby, maybe his marketability went up a bit in the general world after Red Solo Cup went viral this past year.  He probably would have been a no-nonsense, non-squishy judge. I’m not sure how supportive of new artists he would have been; maybe fine, it’s just not a situation I’ve ever seen or read about him in. Of course, he does operate his own record label, so there’s that.

Maybe it was also of interest to AI to bring up the male viewership some? Toby has a lot of women fans, but I think he also has a strong appeal to the male country music audience.

When sober, he’s all about John Rich and promoting John Rich. He’s another guy who likes to posture like he’s speaking for the people and telling it like it is when all he really does is blow whichever way the wind blows. I’d say he’s even more of a mercenary than Toby.

Well, to that extent I’m not sure any of that is a disqualifier. Paula and Steven had their share of actual or suspected substance-imbibing questions, & having a self-fostered reputation for drinking doesn’t seem to be preventing Blake from doing well on the Voice. And the most successful judge AI ever had was extremely full of himself and outspoken. Personally any of those to me are more interesting than someone like Ellen who was full of nicey-nice mush all the time. 

I wonder what the definition of a country music “mercenary” is and who gets to enforce it. They must be hot on Toby’s heels. I can think of plenty of country artists and AI alums, including Kelly, Kellie, and Carrie, who maintain a highly public image, do commercial endorsements, have product tie-in’s, take movies and acting jobs (whether they actually can act or not, lol), do media of all kinds, and all sorts of other things that put themselves out there before the public and make them money. It comes with the type of business they are in, and speaking from the more conservative view of life, hey, if they are seeking to make money, employ others, etc. in a legal fashion I certainly have nothing against that.

steph6449: ‘the general media which leans liberal Democrat’ Couldn’t disagree more
with this characterization in this era of big corporate media. But, all I’m
going to say is: I believe TV media’s most dominant interest these days is
reducing everything into a competition for the sake of stirring things up and
it’s come at the expense of fact checking and real analysis.

I won’t disagree with the latter part, that there is a lot of stirring stuff up and fake argumentation for ratings. But as far as general tendencies of the news / entertainment media and the people who work in it, I guess I must be missing out bigtime if there are center, center-right or conservative-leaning major network news divisions that work for networks starting with any letter but “F.” Or I’ll need to look into a subscription to one of the major national opinion-leading newspapers (NY Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, etc.) so that I won’t miss their surprising shift in endorsement choices for the upcoming general election ;)  When is the last time that any of those newspapers actually endorsed a conservative politician for a major two-party election campaign?  (Not a “RINO” but an actual conservative, and I’m not sure some of them can even list a RINO to their credit anytime in recent decades.)

While I do believe a lot of the journalists who work in hard news make an attempt to be objective, the left or center-left personal tendency of most public figures in the news and entertainment media is not that hard to see. It’s usually pretty obvious among journalists when they write editorials on people or issues, donate money or speak in support of causes / campaigns, write books, etc. Not to mention that more than a few actually came out of politics where their affiliations were out in the open. And among the entertainment world, it’s even more obvious, to include big ol’ rants at all the mainstream awards shows as the occasion calls for it.

Just to cite one report from http://www.journalism.org/node/2304, left-leaning journalists outnumber those who self-describe as more conservative by a quite substantial margin. And at the extremes, hard left opinions outnumber hard right by just about 2 to 1.  

In the most recent survey, 40% of journalists described themselves as being on the left side of the political spectrum (31% said they were “a little to the left” and 9% “pretty far to the left”). But that number was down notably, seven percentage points from 1992, when 47% said they leaned leftward. The percentage of “middle of the roaders” moved up slightly to 33% in 2002 from 30% in 1992. And the number of journalists identifying themselves leaning toward the political right also inched up to 25% from 22% a decade earlier (20% “a little to the right” and 5% “pretty far to the right”).

My guess is those patterns are even more intensified in the major media & entertainment centers like NY and LA. If there is a different report out there that shows the media is majority conservative, that would certainly be fun to read but I’ve never come across one unless possibly under a byline of April 1st. 

I feel quite sure we will never agree about Toby Keith lol. And I certainly don’t think that Courtesy of the Red White & Blue, while polarizing, was written post-9/11 for the purpose of “pandering.” I think it is a valid expression of the mood of many in the country at that time, just as much or more as Alan Jackson’s 9/11 remembrance song. Maybe Alan was a big ol’ panderer too though, hmm.  I also recall watching a program on GAC or CMT in which various notable country acts publicly commented favorably on Courtesy of the Red White & Blue. Seems that there is room for more than one opinion about it. Either way, Toby has been inordinately successful across numerous areas of his career, so I’ll try to console myself with that even if he and his songs aren’t universally loved.

I have never read anything  one way or the other about John Rich in the areas that you mention. If it’s true, it would be derogatory of course. I’m mostly neutral to him or Big & Rich. But when trying to think who might be a “gettable” and non-boring / non-mushy AI judge from among the country music male acts, his name came to mind.

I have bought a lot more Brad Paisley music (fair amount) than Big & Rich (zero). But as an AI judge, Brad just sets off too many alarm bells for me on the too-nice mush potential :O  And some other names just don’t seem old enough to serve in the judge role, or come across as too dull.  Of course for all this deliberation about AI choosing a country music guy as judge, it may turn out that they go in a totally different direction.