I guess I'm tending to look at this whole thing in a way that isn't so much about Stevie and Lindsey, as it is about Javier and Keith.
Javier certainly has a way of being extremely blunt with his opinions and the way he's chosen to express himself may actually be more of a hinderance for getting people to see his point of view, than if he tried to be a little more placating. But that's his choice (or problem), I guess.
Bluntness aside, I don't actually think Javier is saying that Lindsey and Stevie haven't deserved what they've received. The fact that Lindsey and Stevie were not a flash in the pan and have been able to sustain their careers the way they have for decades speaks volumes for their talents. Javier is certainly upset that he didn't get his shot and he believes he wasn't afforded the same consideration given to Lindsey and Stevie . . . but I don't think he's actually saying that those two somehow skated by on good looks and nothing else. In his original Q&A I believe he actually said that he thought that they were deserving of their success because of their talent. I think his point is that he slipped through the cracks because of his "bad" looks.
Where Javier gets into dicey territory is when he seems to vaguely question compromises Lindsey and Stevie may have made to "make it" in L.A., when he really doesn't know what Stevie and Lindsey did or thought or experienced as much as he may like to think he does. And in his attempt to explain why his "look" wasn't acceptable, he may go a little overboard in emphasizing how their looks got them everything he feels he never got -- not wanting to consider that talent may have played a greater role.
But when I read Javier's response, I don't actually see a great attack launched AT Lindsey and Stevie belittling their talents . . . I see someone with a ton of anger who feels like he was as talented, but wasn't allowed to show it because a flash judgment call was made about his appearance.
Having not been there, obviously it's impossible to know what truly happened . . . how much time Keith spent listening to each member . . . what sort of impression Pacheco, Aguirre and Kane didn't make that Buckingham and Nicks did . . .
As is usually my middle of the road kind of thing to say: There's two very different versions of events here bewteen Keith and Javier, and I figure there's probably some truth to each side and the truth lies somewhere in between the "they sucked" version that Keith believes, and the "I wasn't given fair consideration" version that Javier believes. But none of that really actually has a lot to do with Stevie and Lindsey and what they've been able to accomplish in the years since working with Javier or Keith.
There really isn't anything about this whole discussion that makes me question anything about Lindsey and Stevie, their feelings, their choices, their words, their talents at all.
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