Month: January 2009

A reader writes:

It is not my desire to defend all of Bono’s lyrics.  I, too, have often wondered, “what the fuck?” when listening to the words of many a U2 song.  However, to make the emphatic statement that their lyrics never make any sense seems, well, senseless.

How can someone who has written and spoken repeatedly about the important role of doubt fail to grasp the meaning of these words from “But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”:

“I believe in the Kingdom Come
When all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one
But, yes, I’m still running
You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And all my shame, all my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”

Or, how about the haunting words of the singer to his tough, distant, and now-deceased father in “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own”?

“I know that we don’t talk I’m sick of it all
Can you hear me when I sing?
You’re the reason I sing.
You’re the reason why the opera’s in me
Well, hey now, still got to let you know
A house doesn’t make a home
Don’t leave me here alone”

These sentiments certainly make sense – as well as speak – to me.

I guess these extracts are intelligible. Put them into the totality of the songs and they tend to bleed into blarney. But I concede it isn’t total nonsense. For those who enjoy Bono’s music despite his insufferable smugness and opaque lyrics, the video after the jump is a treat:

Ambers has her interesting statement to the committee. She sounds as if she’s channeling Obama. One of the more tantalizing aspects of the next four years will be discovering what Hillary Clinton really believes about the Middle East.

Huntington, New York, 7.24 am.

Fallows analyzes Bush’s final press conference yesterday:

On matters of policy, he revealed himself to be as isolated and out of touch as his critics (including me) would have assumed all along. Two illustrations: he hotly challenged the premise of one question that his policies had made America less prestigious and respected around the world, saying that was just the view of some "elites" and other pantywaists in part of Europe. Go to China! he said. They still respect us there. Yes, sort of. As I’ve written many times in the Atlantic, China does not seem in any deep way "anti-American," and they generally think US-China relations are good. But no thinking person has the slightest doubt that the Iraq, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib policies, in particular, have hurt America’s image badly here as they have in most other places. To say what the President did indicates how carefully he has been protected from any unfiltered feedback from the real world.

John Berry is tipped to become director of the Office of Personnel Management. He currently runs the National Zoo. Bio here. Obama has also asked one of the very few openly gay men in the Bush administration, Mark Dybul, to stay on as global AIDS coordinator.

Another neocon and CIA alum joins the chorus. Woolsey understands at first hand why a strong connection between CIA director and president matters. Here’s how he described his bond with Bill Clinton:

"It wasn’t really a bad relationship. It just didn’t really exist."

"Sarah Palin is the only part of the campaign that I won’t comment on publicly," – Meghan McCain.

French photographer Thierry Bouët has a new show called Première Heure (First Hour), where he took pictures of fifty babies just after they were born. Another after the jump:

More images here.

For Fred Barnes, a born-again Christian, the second on the list is authorizing torture. In order to say this without blanching, Fred has to use the euphemism actually pioneered by the Gestapo for torture without physical scars – "enhanced interrogation" – and has to pretend that there is a debate among sane people over whether waterboarding is torture. There is no such debate.

"[President Bush] has been forthright in accepting the consequences of his decisions. He is not a shifter of blame," – Jay Nordlinger.