Wisdom from a Backstreet Boy

We may recall that four years ago, shortly after 9-11, most journalists decided to forego whatever intelligence and judgment they may have had, in order to get gooey, sentimental, "reflective," and fascistic. Hyper-sensitive to trivialities such as war expressions in sports. I remember commentary getting so bad that I was half expecting there to be pressure for the New York Jets football team to change their name.

I just stumbled upon this article/artifact from October, 2001, which in the main discussed how entertainment was changing, with artists changing their content, radio stations changing their playlists, etc. But it included this:

After the horrible events of that day, Kevin Richardson of pop sensation Backstreet Boys made the following insensitive and certainly unpatriotic comments on Canada's MuchMusic television, later quoted in the New York Post: "I just think we are a little bit of an arrogant nation and maybe this is a little bit of a humbling experience...what has our government done to provoke this action, that we don't know about?" Richardson later issued a full apology and statement of clarification. Backstreet Boys' supervising tour carpenter Daniel John Lee was killed aboard one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center en route to Los Angeles, where he was to join his wife for the birth of their child.

A young man saw it was in his personal and commercial interest to apologize for telling the truth. The truth, according to the author of this article, is "insensitive" and "unpatriotic."

And, as we know, it's only gotten worse since.