On Sunday night, longtime country music star Reba McEntire lived up to a promise, made two days earlier, to steer clear of politics as host of the 53rd annual Academy of Country Music Awards telecast.
McEntire had told Us Weekly in an interview published Friday that she and the program wouldn’t follow the lead of other awards shows, because she thinks the ACM ceremonies should be about entertainment. “I want it to be positive and uplifting,” McEntire said.
What a welcome concept, especially at a time when the left seeks to politicize virtually everything.
The ACM ceremonies, shown live on CBS from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, were refreshingly free of Trump-bashing and, more specifically, devoid of gun control demagoguery.
The absence of the latter, especially following the mass shooting that left 58 dead and hundreds more injured at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip last Oct. 1, surely irked opportunistic gun-grabbers like Michael Bloomberg.
The show couldn’t very well pretend the tragedy didn’t occur, of course, and a brief opening montage acknowledged it, but did so with dignity.
Jason Aldean, who was on stage at the festival when the shooting began, was joined Sunday night by fellow country music stars Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, Maren Morris, and Thomas Rhett in a tribute to the victims, the country music community, family and friends, and “the healing power” of music.
We are all reunited in Las Vegas tonight through the healing power of music. America, this is your #ACMawards. pic.twitter.com/uMSJ2nvAj6
“This year, the idea is to have fun. There’s a lot of political things you can address, stuff going on in the world. That’s not our theme,” McEntire, whose music career has spanned more than 40 years, said in the interview with Us Weekly.
“Our theme is to have fun, not to be mean, not to be catty, just to have a great night of entertainment, great music, seeing everybody, and introducing new music.”
As though to keep things on track, a bit more than halfway through the three-hour program, the frequent ACM Awards host quipped, “They told me I can’t talk about politics, drinking, or…
