SO WHAT DO THE REPUBLICAN DEAD-ENDERS THINK OF THE NEW NEIL YOUNG ALBUM?

With Bush's job approval ratings in free fall and heading into the teens-- like Cheney's-- is this the time for Republican loyalists to start rockin' out in the free world? As you probably know by now, Neil Young's new album, LIVING WITH WAR, is filled with criticism for Bush and his policies. Vit Wagner, the pop critic for the TORONTO STAR, has noticed that American right-wingers aren't too happy with Neil or his new album.

Neil Young's new album, LIVING WITH WAR, might not trigger the downfall of U.S. president George W. Bush, but it has served to sort out any lingering confusion about the legendary singer's nationality.  A Canadian calling for the impeachment of a U.S. president will tend to do that.

Young, born in Toronto and raised in Winnipeg, is a Canadian.  This will not come as news to anyone on this side of the border, where the 60-year-old tunesmith is revered as one of Canada's greatest musical sons. But the distinction is sometimes lost down south, where — if you believe long-held conventional wisdom — it is assumed that Young, who has lived in the U.S. for 40 years without taking citizenship, is an American.

It's hard to gauge the extent of this misconception.  But it's a safe bet that it's less common now than it was before "Let's Impeach the President," the most controversial of the 10 tracks on /LIVING WITH WAR, started streaming for free on Young's Web site a week and a half ago.

The album, which arrives in stores today, has provoked a flood of commentary outside the usual music press circles, much of it focused on whether Young is even entitled to have an opinion about the commander-in-chief.

"Neil Young is not a U.S. citizen.  He's Canadian," protests the online edition of conservative weekly, THE NATIONAL REVIEW. "He can't even vote. He's been in America for 40 years, and has never bothered to take out citizenship. And this interloper from the land of moose and Mounties is telling us to impeach our president! For goodness' sake.  If it's not Mexican fence-jumpers trying to dictate legislation to us, it's fur trappers from the wilds of Ontario insulting our head of state."

On Fox News, host Mike Gallagher complained, "Neil Young is rich and famous because the country he's trashing made him so.  Wouldn't his words carry a little more clout if he bothered to become a citizen of the country that made him rich and famous?"

Another Fox commentator, John Gibson, accused Young of disrespecting the memory of 9/11.  Gibson suggested the singer take in a screening of United 93, not realizing, apparently, that Young paid tribute to the victims of that flight with his 2002 song, "Let's Roll."

The blogosphere is predictably awash with similar sentiments, replete with derisive remarks about back bacon and other Canadiana.  Young has had his defenders, too, including Illinois Senator Barak Obama, endorsed by Young on another of the disc's songs, "Lookin' for a Leader."

This is not the first time Young has disturbed the waters politically.  "Ohio," a response to the killing by National Guardsmen of four Vietnam War protestors at Kent State University in 1970, was a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young that has endured as an anti-war anthem.

A decade later, Young made waves by offering a positive assessment of then-president Ronald Reagan.  Disillusioned though many liberals were by this revelation, few, if any, suggested that Young's citizenship disqualified him from voicing an opinion.  Conservatives, for the most part, were delighted.

The irony is that while Young might not technically qualify as a U.S. citizen, LIVING WITH WAR is written from an entirely American perspective.  The album's criticisms of government policy are framed by the assumption that America is a fundamentally good, freedom-loving nation being led astray by corrupt, misguided leadership.  The concluding track, after all, is an irony-free rendition of "America the Beautiful."

Tracks from the disc will serve as a focal point for the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young trek that stops at the Air Canada Centre on July 10. Even the name of the tour, "Freedom of Speech '06," has a decidedly American ring.

In any case,LIVING WITH WAR isn't nearly as incendiary as Steve Earle's 2002 powder keg, JERUSALEM, flung directly into the teeth of 9/11's highly patriotic aftermath, or his 2004 follow-up, THE REVOLUTION STARTS HERE.

Many of the same pundits also slammed Earle, particularly for his sociologically empathetic portrait of Taliban conscript John Walker Lindh.  But there's a world of difference.  Earle, who has unabashedly identified himself as a Marxist, is calling for a revolution.  In "Looking for a Leader," by contrast, Young floats the less-than radical-assertion that maybe Colin Powell would be a better president than Bush.

The political climate is different now, too.  With Bush's approval ratings slithering, Young isn't the only U.S. resident contemplating impeachment. The thought has probably crossed the mind of the odd Republican. Judging by Bush's plummeting popularity even among conservatives, disenchantment with the administration runs deep. In that sense, the political views expressed on LIVING WITH WAR are more mainstream than right-wing commentators let on.

It's easier to dismiss the messenger as an unworthy interloper than deal with how widely the disillusionment is shared.

Besides, it isn't as if Young eagerly sought the mantle of national conscience.

"I was waiting for someone to come along, some young singer 18 to 22 years old, to write these songs and stand up," Young told THE LOS ANGELES TIMES. "I waited a long time. Then I decided that maybe the generation that has to do this is still the Sixties generation."

Or maybe, in the spirit of free trade, the job just fell to a Canadian.