A set list for the right wing?

The National Review has offered its ranking of the top 50 rock 'n' roll songs for conservatives, Atop the list: "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. The NYT has the annotated "set list" on its site.

DULLARD TAKE: To paraphrase Bono in one of his "Rattle and Hum" moments: "This is a song Dennis Hastert stole from Pete Townshend. We're stealin' it back."

Indeed, this list is full of puzzling picks. We'll give them the libertarian leanings of Rush, and they can flat-out have Sammy Hagar, Jesus Jones, Kid Rock and Creed. But with many of these tracks, it's hard to tell what message the conservatives are hearing. (Of course, Tom DeLay thinks Stephen Colbert is on his side.) To wit:

• "My City Was Gone," The Pretenders. This song, one of Chrissie Hynde's best, is an environmentalist polemic, not an anti-regulation rant. Yes, the opening is used as the theme music for Rush Limbaugh's radio program. (Maybe even Rush can recognize a great bass line.) But his show's intro never gets to Hynde's lyrics, which are a call for preserving open space — a liberal point of view.

• "Godzilla," Blue Oyster Cult. This one sounds like another environmentalist anthem: "History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man." Plus, the original Godzilla film added an anti-nuclear undertone to the monster mayhem.

• "Heroes," David Bowie. This is one of several songs listed for its Cold War value. Here, Bowie sings of a couple divided by the Berlin Wall, a tale told over a mesmerizing, increasingly layered drone created with the help of Brian Eno. It's a great track all right, but its embrace by conservatives is another example of their failure to see that the victory over Soviet communism was a decades-long effort by Democrats and Republicans. In other words, the American left hated the wall too.