WHO'LL STOP THE DERP?

I expect everyone had a great time at yesterday's Concert for Valor in D.C. -- except Ethan Epstein of the Weekly Standard, who must have feverishly thumb-typed this right from the Mall:

Who would have thought that that Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and Zac Brown, accomplished musicians all, would be so, well, tone-deaf? But how else to explain their choice of song—Creedence Clearwater's famously anti-war anthem “Fortunate Son”—at the ostensibly pro-military “Concert for Valor” this evening on the National Mall? 

The song, not to put too fine a point on it, is an anti-war screed, taking shots at "the red white and blue." It was a particularly terrible choice given that Fortunate Son is, moreover, an anti-draft song, and this concert was largely organized to honor those who volunteered to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Think how traumatized those vets must feel every time they hear this hateful song played in an oldies bar or at a ballgame or in a jeans commercial!

On a musical level, “Fortunate Song” is not a bad song—that's one hell of a riff.

I mean, it's okay if what you want is a cool, extremely popular MOR rock song at a big public concert, but why would you want that?

But the “Concert for Valor,” a Veterans Day event sponsored by HBO and Starbucks, in front of the Capitol Building, was not the place for it.

Epstein forgot to mention the big finale, where the rockstars spit on the vets from the stage and called them war pigs.  (I haven't heard any actual veterans complain, but maybe they can provoke Allan West into providing some mouth-foam later.)

There's some harrumph-harrumph Let's Examine The Controversy stuff at the Washington Post and elsewhere, but fuck it: Some ideas, if we're so generous as to call them that, are just too stupid for anything but cold buckets of derision.

UPDATE. Kudos to this guy ("a grassroots activist who distinguished himself as one of the top conservative bloggers in Florida") for crafting the perfect lede for this story:

Perhaps we should expect no less during the Obama administration...

Don't fault him for failing to work in #Benghazi, he was on deadline.

UPDATE 2. Ann Althouse gets in on it, and actually sounds sane for a while, but inevitably --

I couldn't watch the clip at the first link. I can't stand Bruce Springsteen, and much as I dislike the Weekly Standard's bellyaching, it's not as bad as listening to Bruce straining histrionically. I have to concede that it's possible that Bruce thinks — and somehow conveyed — that those who volunteer today are doing so because it's their best option in the limited array of choices they have because they are not rich or well-connected. If that's the message, then it really is a rotten thing to say to our American volunteers.

That's a lovely example of even-handedness as practiced in our current political discourse: Sure, what actually happened was clear, but on the other hand here's an unsupported fantasy about what Springsteen might be thinking, so you see both sides etc.

UPDATE 3. Here, enjoy the nightmare of Breitbart factotum John Nolte arguing about the lyrics to "Fortunate Son." (Sample: "Read lyrics from 'star spangled eyes' to 'military son, son' and understand the context of troop-bashing era, obvious imo.") Everybody retuck your shirts! Coming up next: Is "Louie, Louie" Dirty, and Whether The Flintstones is Indeed a Rip-Off of The Honeymooners.

UPDATE 4. I think this is my favorite: The Washington Times calling "Fortunate Son" "Creedence Clearwater’s Revival’s draft-dodging anthem." No, wait, my favorite is NewsBusters referring to Eminem swearing onstage (I know!) as "liberal celebrities embarrassed families in the audience and those watching at home with heavy-handed profanity." No, wait, I -- oh, hell, they're all winners.