And he'll be producing Rep. Joe Wilson's next heckle

I guess someone's a Taylor Swift fan!

I keed, I keed.

JE: I started hearing about it from friends online last night, then people started posting clips from YouTube... and then I had to go look up what a "Taylor Swift" was. I had thought it was some kind of floor cleaning device. She seemed kind of sweet, actually, but I avoid "new country" like the plague. Gimme Tammy Wynette and George Jones any time.

No you di'ant!

Yeah she handled it very well. But her music is pretty dreadful. If you want a current artist who's doing real country music check out Neko Case. Or Jenny Lewis. Both are good.

JE: I was a Lone Justice/Maria McKee fan. And I like Neko Case. Have to check out Jenny Lewis. Thanks for the tip!

thought this was funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RwPpbX6GO8

"Taylor Swift"... isn't that that old George Clooney-looking dude who won American Idol a few years ago?

Well, with the Internet, it was only a matter of time...

Kanye West is real happy for you, and he'sa let you finish, but first...

Since when is it a source of comedy to demonstrate total ignorance of pop culture and pretending that someone famous is not actually famous?

Taylor Swift is the best selling country artist of 2008 (despite her CD only coming out in November), and the top selling musician of any genre in 2009.

I understand that not everyone is a fan and that some people don't keep up with current music, but give me a break. Pretending she isn't famous is like questioning why Michael Jackson's death was covered in the news, just because you weren't personally a fan.

"LOL I thought it was a brand of mop" just makes you look like an idiot.

JE: It wasn't my intention to pretend Taylor Swift wasn't famous OR to look like an idiot because I wasn't a fan of her or New Country in general. I wanted to make a point (with a little humor, I'd hoped) that you didn't have to be a fan of hers to acknowledge Kanye West's inexcusable rudeness. The "joke" was supposed to be at my own expense, not hers. I've found -- and you can see it in some comments on this blog -- that some people assume things are right or wrong not in and of themselves, but situationally, depending on which "side" you're on. If you were on Team Taylor, then you were offended by what KW did. If you were on Team Kanye, then you didn't think it was a big deal. And I was trying to show a parallel (in my headline) to what Joe Wilson did during Obama's speech to the joint session of Congress. It does not matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat when it comes to the rude and uncivil behavior of Joe Wilson's outburst or Glenn Beck's illogical, ad hominem arguments. It's the behavior that is objectionable and unacceptable if you care about common courtesy or values like civil discourse. Whether you do or you don't, however, has nothing to do with whether you're a fan of Swift, West, Wilson, Obama or Beck. Anyway, that's what I was trying to get at by saying I didn't even know who Swift was (although I'd heard her name). I had no investment in whether her video was better than anyone else's. The fact is she won, and if Kanye had a problem with that he could have said whatever he liked later, but he had no right to take the spotlight (and the microphone) away from her like that.

Taylor Swift isn't famous the way Michael Jackson or performers of that era or earlier eras were famous. If you don't listen to pop radio or watch American Idol or MTV (which I think covers just about anyone with a brain or taste), you're not going to know who she is. I really had no idea, she was just a name I vaguely associated with American Idol.

I can't understand getting that upset because Emerson, who is an adult with adult tastes, doesn't know anything about Taylor Swift. You gonna get mad at him next because he doesn't know about a popular video game? These things aren't aimed at him.

JE: I don't know who Brad Paisley is, either. I Shazamed a song of his on my iPhone once (it was playing in an Albuquerque rental car) because it was so terrible I had to find out who was singing it. I do know, however, that Kenny McChesney was married to Renee Zellwegger and Keith Urban is married to Nicole Kidman. Isn't that enough?

Hey, Joe Wilson was just speaking Truth to Power. I thought that was a good thing? I guess Joe's rudeness was inspired by the Dems who booed GWB during the freakin' State of the Union address. Don't remember you getting all "Miss Manners" about that.

JE: They booed him. That's been happening for more than 200 years. They didn't interrupt him.