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Dylan on Obama
The Times sits down with Bob Dylan to look at the US president through Zimmerman's eyes:
[Bill Flanagan]: Do you think he’ll make a good president?
BD: I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.
It says a lot about the last eight years of US history that "having good intentions" is enough to make a White House occupant noteworthy. But does Dylan really believe that Nixon had good intentions? Really?
1 comment:
In absolute fairness, the phrase "good intentions" could be interpreted in any number of ways. One could say that Bush had very good intentions, albeit in the form of things that had the intent of being beneficial to himself and very few others. Similarly, when Nixon lied to the nation about Watergate his intentions were to him good (i.e. he was lying to keep himself in power) but completely the opposite to every decent and honest person. Likewise whilst most of us wouldn't describe glorifying crime and romanticising villains in song as the writer having "good intentions", I'm sure one particular songwriter thought he did have when he was writing about notorious hitman Joey Gallo. So, here's to "good intentions" - the ultimate in bad argument.
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