Hey Woland ... stop beating around the "Bush." :) That is EXACTLY what this song and many of the others on this wonderful socially-critical album are trying to make.
Unlike most of the his past political commentary, which oft-times was wrapped in complete metaphor, this time Michael is wielding a very blunt hammer, derisively disregarding Bush and the rest of the red state, red meat crowd who blindly lapped up the bones that were being thrown to them without much of a thought. Stipe constantly mocks all of those on this album, including the line:
" all your sad and lost apostles
hum my name and flare their nostrils"
which I think is his own personal vindication for the way Stipe the political activist as well as others, like the Dixie Chicks, were treated back in the hey-day of the Iraqi war, when they were contemptuously dismissed by those with "flaring nostrils" who could never think for themsleves.
Hey Woland ... stop beating around the "Bush." :) That is EXACTLY what this song and many of the others on this wonderful socially-critical album are trying to make.
Unlike most of the his past political commentary, which oft-times was wrapped in complete metaphor, this time Michael is wielding a very blunt hammer, derisively disregarding Bush and the rest of the red state, red meat crowd who blindly lapped up the bones that were being thrown to them without much of a thought. Stipe constantly mocks all of those on this album, including the line: " all your sad and lost apostles hum my name and flare their nostrils" which I think is his own personal vindication for the way Stipe the political activist as well as others, like the Dixie Chicks, were treated back in the hey-day of the Iraqi war, when they were contemptuously dismissed by those with "flaring nostrils" who could never think for themsleves.