If there's one straight talker who isn't afraid to let the media have it over the public flaying of celebrity chef Paula Deen, it's country and Southern rock legend Charlie Daniels.
Daniels blasted the media for glossing over significant scandals at the highest levels of government to fill the airwaves instead with ire over a National Enquirer story covering a racial discrimination suit in which Deen admitted to having used "the N-word" decades ago and planning a "plantation" theme party that included black servants.
"If anything exemplifies the overt prejudice and determination of the American media to report only the news that suits their social and political interests and concept of what does and does not fit their agenda," Daniels wrote in a blog post, "it's the totally overblown coverage of something Paula Deen said 20 years ago, and some party she planned that she wanted to resemble a plantation scene featuring black male waiters in period dress.
"Do the 20-year-old words of a lady with a television cooking show trump the lie an attorney general told Congress, or officials at the IRS usurping the rights of the American public and pleading the Fifth Amendment when confronted about it or the hiding of the facts surrounding the murder of four Americans at a consulate in Libya or the incredibly shabby image of a president taking a 100-million-dollar vacation in this economy while closing down tours of the White House or the NSA invasion on the privacy of millions of unsuspecting citizens?" he posited. "I think not."
The Deen controversy, fanned into flame by scores of news outlets, has had a devastating effect on the chef's career, as the Food Network announced it will stop carrying her show and several major national brands terminated or suspended endorsement deals with her. Despite her most recent recipe book skyrocketing to the top of Amazon's best-seller list, her publisher cancelled a five-book deal with Deen.
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"Why is the Paula Deen story worth so much airtime if not to take attention off the truly important issue[s], the life changing things that really affect the lives of Americans?" Daniels continued. "The news is not about news anymore. It's about protecting some people, destroying others and shoving a socialist agenda down the collective throats of America."
Instead of spending "five nights in a row" headlining the Deen saga, Daniels suggested, the national news media should focus on more important matters.
"Wouldn't a week-long investigation into the life of Lois Lerner, the things she's done and the reason she's pleading the Fifth be more meaningful to the American people?" Daniels asked. "How about the coming catastrophic tidal wave the effect of Obamacare is going to have on America – is there nothing worth questioning in the over 30,000 pages of regulations?
"How about the Christian pastor who is being held in one of the worst hell-hole prisons in the world in Iran for nothing more than sharing his faith? How about a whole way of life that's being destroyed in West Virginia by the president's war on coal?" Daniels continued. "I think you get the picture.
"No wonder the mainstream media has fallen so far in the trust of the American people," the star concluded.