George Michael courts controversy again

George Michael is set to cause controversy, especially amongst US record buyers, but this time its through a move into musical satire with a track that criticises the UK government’s policy on the Middle East. The video for ‘Shoot The Dog’ includes cartoon images of Bush with Blair as his lapdog, while Michael himself sits on a nuclear missile. Talking to MTV US journalist Kurt Loder this week Michael defended the song and video: "People are looking at the song in context of an attack on America, as opposed to an attack on Tony Blair. My attack is that Tony Blair is not involving the British in this issue. He's perfectly happy staying up to watch the World Cup and enjoying the Jubilee, all things I'm perfectly guilty of, but there's a serious discussion about Iraq which hasn't taken place. We don't know what Saddam Hussein is capable of, the British public has no idea." Michael claims he wrote the song before September 11, and that as a result of the terrorist attacks he has decided not to release the song or video in the US. "The incident was so appalling, and the shock was so fresh," he said, "that I think it would have been totally disrespectful, because the song was really about the West and the fundamentalist world. It wasn't about any one event." Some US reporters argue that Michael’s tongue in cheek approach to dealing with these issues means the point of the song will be missed on most record buyers, and that his video might cause so much offence in America it will finish his career.