Dixie Chicks Regret Bush Apology

Singer Natalie Maines says the President isn't "owed any respect whatsoever"

Back in 2003, Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines created an uproar when she told a London concert audience, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”

Though the group received death threats and was banned by many country-music radio stations, Maines says in the new issue of Time magazine that she has just one regret: saying she was sorry. “I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President,” Maines says. “But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t feel he is owed any respect whatsoever.”

Maines and bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison are back with a new album, Taking the Long Way, in stores Tuesday, and a new, no-apologies attitude. The CD’s first single, aptly titled “Not Ready to Make Nice,” is selling well on iTunes but has been picked up by few country stations.

“I guess if we really cared, we wouldn’t have released that single first,” Maguire tells Time. “That was just making people mad. But I don’t think it was a mistake.”

After a decade together and more than 20 million albums sold, the Chicks have earned the right to be called Dixie Women. All are married with children – Maines, 31, is mom to sons Jackson, 5, and Beckett, 22 months, with actor husband Adrian Pasdar; Maguire, 36, and husband Gareth have 2-year-old twins Kathleen and Eva; and Robison, 33, and husband Charlie are parents to Charles, 3, and 1-year-old twins Henry and Julianna.

But time and family have not mellowed them. Says Maines of the controversy she caused in 2003, “It was awesome to be angry, to be sure that you’re right and that the things you do matter. You don’t realize that you’re not feeling those feelings until you do. And then you realize how much more interesting life is.”