Rockers in Rolling Stone Hail the Goracle, Trash Rise of 'Idiots' to 'Extreme Power'

June 19th, 2007 6:26 AM

Don’t look now, but rock musicians are calling the president an idiot again. Rolling Stone’s latest issue is completely obsessed with promoting Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts, and includes interviews with rockers predictably trashing wars for oil and hailing the Goracle. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd stood out with the Bush-bashing:

"It would help if we could divert some of our resources away from blowing each other to bits and toward think tanks. Something has gone wrong with the democratic process when you can get idiots rising to offices of extreme power, like the presidency of the United States of America. George Bush – you could not make a worse choice in someone to lead the most powerful nation in the free world."

The section in bold was highlighted in larger, bolder text by Rolling Stone.

But as much as Waters touted Gore’s film as "very impressive, very compelling viewing," he’s not exactly a leader himself. When asked if he’s changed anything in his daily life due to the "climate crisis," Waters admitted: "So far, very little. I find myself going to turn the lights off where I wouldn’t have before, not to save the few cents but because it seems like a good thing to do. And I drink warm beer, obviously, which helps."

Alicia Keys at least wondered if we were the idiots, and not President Bush: "Are we a bunch of idiots that we’ve seen Al Gore’s incredible documentary and we continue to kill the Earth? Maybe. Hopefully, people will go to Live Earth will come back and say ‘We know what’s going on, and we’re not going to sit back any longer.’

When asked if our leaders "don’t get it," Keys said it’s impossible our leaders are oblivious, that "it’s complete greed...How much are we going to take before we say ‘Your greed can’t lead us to hell’?"

Other sages on these Gore-boosting pages were Melissa Etheridge, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Ludacris, Chris Cornell, James Blunt, Mike D of the Beastie Boys, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, and Davey Havok of AFI, who touted being a vegan.