Duke of Data Blog

The failure of U.S. authorities to detect a plot to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day has reignited long-simmering concerns that intelligence reforms implemented five years ago remain inadequate to prevent terrorist attacks.

With disaster aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 averted by the bomb's malfunction, rather than by astute analysis of available information, some intelligence officials have suggested that the reforms were the cause of such lapses and not the solution to them.

President Obama has not singled out anyone for blame and has said that everyone involved has "taken responsibility" for their shortfalls. But the most intense scrutiny has been directed toward the centerpiece of the 2004 intelligence reorganization: the National Counterterrorism Center.

The NCTC and its parent, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), were created to force the 16-agency intelligence community to share information in ways that eluded it leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As the central repository for "all-source" intelligence on international terrorism, the NCTC is tasked with connecting the dots and advising the government on threats.

If dots were not connected concerning the airline bombing allegedly attempted by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on behalf of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Obama "knows where to look" for the culprit, said one intelligence official who, like many others across the intelligence community, is worried about where the blame will fall and appeared anxious to direct it elsewhere, but would address the subject only on the condition of anonymity.

Other intelligence officials defended the NCTC, countering that some agencies appear less interested in fixing the problems than in concealing their own failure to interpret and flag information they had that might have prevented the holiday incident.

"Anyone who believes that a relatively small organization like NCTC is going to connect every electron in each of those 30 databases is either disingenuous or naive, and certainly knows very little about how intelligence analysis actually works," said a second official who was similarly reluctant to speak for attribution.

In a statement released Saturday, NCTC Director Michael E. Leiter said that al-Qaeda continues "to refine their methods to test our defenses" and that thwarting the group is "our most sacred responsibility." After Obama said Tuesday that "the system failed," Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair released a statement saying that the intelligence community "got" the president's message and acknowledged failure.

Regardless of where fault is ultimately assessed, several officials and experts said the failure to uncover the plot confirmed fears that the massive amounts of terrorism-related information being gathered since the 2001 attacks might outgrow the capacity to manage it. The CIA, the FBI, the military, and numerous Cabinet departments and independent agencies are flooded every day with new data from the field that is available to the NCTC.

"The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," Russell E. Travers, in charge of the NCTC database of terrorism "entities," said in a 2007 interview as his list topped 400,000 and continued to expand. "Where am I going to be, where is my successor going to be, five years down the road?"

Travers is still there, and the database has grown to about 550,000. Beyond connecting the dots, "the challenge we now face is that we are collecting so much information," Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) said last week of the system he helped devise as the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R), co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, which first proposed the reorganization, said the solution was not reducing the powers of the DNI and the NCTC but enhancing them. "Does the DNI have the proper tools?" he asked in an interview. "Does the DNI need to be strengthened?"

"We're not going to be so lucky next time," Kean said.

Others have drawn the opposite lesson from the failure. The CIA -- which lost its position as head of the intelligence community and analyst of all-source intelligence in the reorganization, as well as its direct role as intelligence adviser to the president -- has barely restrained itself from shouting, "We told you so."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal government was radically restructured to emphasize counterterrorism, with new agencies and divisions established. Twenty-two other domestic agencies were combined under a new Homeland Security Department.

The government's intelligence components were placed under the new umbrella of the DNI after the 9/11 Commission inquiry and other investigations determined that the cultural and electronic firewalls between them had prevented information-sharing in the days before the 2001 attacks. Under the new system, agencies were restricted largely to intelligence-gathering and instructed to contribute analysts to rotating duty at the NCTC. Intelligence officials at the CIA and other agencies argued against separating collection from analysis.

At NCTC headquarters, in a massive office building not far from CIA headquarters in Langley, analysts from the CIA and FBI; the Defense Intelligence Agency and others under the Pentagon umbrella; the departments of State, Homeland Security, Treasury and Energy; and other subsidiary agencies such as the drug enforcement and transportation security administrations sift through raw and processed intelligence.

In agency-integrated teams assigned by subject matter and geography, they turn out reports disseminated to thousands of policy and intelligence officials across the government. Agency representatives sit around a table three times daily -- at 8 a.m., 3 p.m. and 1 a.m. -- to update the nation's threat matrix.

A smaller group of analysts maintains the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, the entities database into which thousands of pieces of intelligence information about terrorism suspects from around the world are downloaded each day. Every evening, TIDE dumps what it deems the most important of the day's gleanings into a separate database at the FBI-run Terrorist Screening Center -- a master watch list that is used to determine who is not allowed to obtain a U.S. visa, cross a U.S. border, or board an airliner in or destined for the United States.

The failures that might have uncovered the Christmas plot occurred when analysts failed to connect a Nov. 20 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, reporting a visit in which Abdulmutallab's father expressed concern that his 23-year-old son had fallen in with extremists in Yemen, with intelligence last summer and fall about an al-Qaeda plot.

The intelligence included communications intercepted by the National Security Agency indicating that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was planning a holiday attack and referred to a Nigerian being groomed for the mission. At least part of Abdulmutallab's name was thought to be included in the communications.

It is unclear whether the NSA, in the parlance of the community, "formally disseminated" the information in the intercepts to the NCTC or others. Although initial reform plans to combine all intelligence databases into a one-stop searchable system remain incomplete, NSA databases are available to NCTC analysts, as is the CIA database, in which agents began compiling a biography of Abdulmutallab after his father visited the embassy.

Some of the finger-pointing centers on claims and counterclaims about who should have flagged what for others to pay attention to and who should have looked where without being prompted. Travers, the TIDE chief who also serves as deputy director of the NCTC, predicted the problem even earlier than his 2007 expression of concern about the volume of terrorist information.

"If an organization posts something to its webpage, it can claim to have shared information," he wrote in the forward to a 2005 book published by the Joint Military Intelligence College. "Whether the right people know the information/analysis is there, and actually make use of it, is entirely another matter.

"Indeed, we'll almost certainly be dealing with precisely this problem in the post mortems of our next intelligence failure; the relevant intelligence will have been posted, but the right analysts never found it among the terabytes of available information."

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Edge talks new U2 album with Hot Press

It's been out for a couple weeks now, but we're just getting a chance to see the full text of Edge's December interview with Hot Press magazine. It's pretty lengthy and covers a lot of topics, but here are the pertinent parts relating to U2's plans for new music in 2010. Olaf Tyaransen is conducting the interview.

The last time we spoke, you mentioned the possibility of a new U2 album coming out before the end of the year. That's obviously not going to happen, but when can fans expect a new record?

We would like it to be sooner rather than later. We are working on some stuff that sounds amazing, but it's hard to say when it'll actually be done. Well, certainly I don't, and I know Bono doesn't want to leave too long of a gap between the last record and the next one.

What's the feel of the songs you're working on at the moment?

It's too early to say, but because the last record was an experiment writing with Brian [Eno] and Danny [Lanois] in that kind of free-flowing workshop, Bono and I -- we're really kind of songwriting in a much more formal way at the moment. We've got some stuff, more abstract stuff that we could put together as a release, but right now what's really intriguing me is plain, old-fashioned songwriting, and we have some amazing stuff.

How about the Spiderman musical? It's been reported that, thanks to the recession, it's run into problems. Is it going ahead?

Well, it's all ready to go. We're just waiting for the word that we can ... we've pretty much done our job. We're waiting for the word that our director, Julie Taymor, can get back and get into the theatre and start putting the show together. We're told it could be any day. We've got new producers involved: Michael Cohl is coming in, to become an additional producer. So they're busy working on raising finance and getting all that stuff in order. I'm really happy with the music and the script, and the cast that we have are fantastic, so I don't have any concerns, ultimately, but it's kind of frustrating that it's taking so long.

(Edge also answered some questions about U2's plans for the 360 tour in 2010, and you can read those on U2tours.com.)

Ten Ideas for Bono and his New York Times Op-Ed on Ten World-Changing Ideas

"Another fucking Bono op-ed," a tipster astutely notes! The U2 frontman has Ten Ideas to Change the World, and they're in the Times' Op-Ed section "in the spirit of rock star excess." So how 'bout ten ideas to change Bono?

1. Stop writing Op-Eds. Don't be one of those people, Bono.

2. Stop licensing your songs out. Especially "One." You have enough money and we still like some of them.

3. Stop it with the lasers. You don't need lasers. "Ultraviolet" is awesome enough without them.

4. Save the drama for your concerts. Yes, like you say, it would be nice if Nelson Mandela came out to drop the first ball on the line at the World Cup or whatever. But

If he shows up, the world will weep with joy.

isn't entirely necessary.

5. You have enough money to figure out how to follow through with some of these ideas. So do it. Especially the one about making cars more like iPods, which, besides being awesome-sounding, is certainly on the right track. And about getting rotavirus vaccinations to everyone in Africa. This requires money, which you have, and can get out of your rich friends. Do it.

6. Take a difficult position. Balls out, Bono. Noting that there are bad places like "North Korea, Myanmar" in the world who need their Ghandis is nice, sure. But what about Iran? And why not take a stance on Israel-Palestine? Geopolitical conflicts that need opinions now more than ever, as they're constantly on the cusp of either solution or total chaos. You can only spread the good will for world peace for so long before the message starts to become rhetoric in and of itself.

7. Stop looking in the past. Especially like this:

Dr. Anton Zeilinger, an Austrian physicist, is becoming a rock star of science for his work in quantum teleportation, which I know very little about but which I think I may have achieved backstage one night in Berlin in the early 1990s.

Unless it's in regards to recording another Achtung, Baby. While we're at it, don't ever—ever—count in Spanish again. Ever.

8. If you're going to write an Op-Ed, write it for the Las Vegas Sun. Do I think it's ridiculous that you have an Op-Ed page in the New York Times? For fuck's sake, absolutely. But do I think it'll get some people who didn't read the New York Times yesterday to read it today? Yes. That's not a terrible thing. Hell, write for the Las Vegas Sun. They won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service Journalism this year and had to lay off the editor who oversaw the reporting on the prize-winning piece. If you can't, get The Edge to do it. What's he doing right now, eating bananas? Call his ass.

9. Get new sunglasses. Do it for the Children. We're okay with them because we're just used to you but I can imagine you're scaring the children by looking like the future model of SkyNet Terminators. And the children are our future. I'm serious. A pair of Clubmasters would do you just fine.

10. Stop it with the Jesus complex. Are you Bono? Yes. Are you Jesus? No. Your intentions are excellent and at least 60% of your music catalog is still indisputably great. But if you were to play the whole "Bono Thing" a little more low key, tipsters and I might not laugh every time you talk about changing the world like it's the pop culture punchline it is—regardless of the excellent work you've already done!—if you keep on delivering it to everyone year after year.

Ten for the Next Ten, by Bono

IF we have overindulged in anything these past several days, it is neither holiday ham nor American football; it is Top 10 lists. We have been stuffed full of them. Even in these self-restrained pages, it has been impossible to avoid the end-of-the-decade accountings of the 10 best such-and-suches and the 10 worst fill-in-the-blanks.

And so, in the spirit of rock star excess, I offer yet another.

The main difference, if it matters, is that this list looks forward, not backward. So here, then, are 10 ideas that might make the next 10 years more interesting, healthy or civil. Some are trivial, some fundamental. They have little in common with one another except that I am seized by each, and moved by its potential to change our world.

Return of the Automobile as a Sexual Object

Peter Arkle

How is it that the country that made us all fall in love with the automobile has failed, with only a few exceptions, to produce a single family sedan with the style and humor and grace of the cars produced in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s? Put aside the question of whether those models were male (as in longer, lower and wider, Dr. Freud) or female (as in fender skirts, curvy belt lines and, of course, headlights). Either way, they all had sex appeal. (In Ireland in the ’70s, it was the E-Type Jag that made sense of puberty.) Today, however, we have the mundanity of our marriage to the minivan and the S.U.V. and long-term relationships with midsize cars that are, forgive me, a little heavy in the rear cargo hold.

Are aerodynamics to blame? Economics? Or that most American of inventions, design by committee? It hurts me to say this about democracy (and I know because my band is one), but rarely does majority rule produce something of beauty.

That’s why the Obama administration — while it still holds the keys to the big automakers — ought to put some style fascists into the mix: the genius of Marc Newson ... Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive from Apple ... Frank Gehry, the architect, and Jeff Koons, the artist. Put the great industrial designers in the front seat, right along with sound financial stewardship ... the greener, the cleaner, the meaner on fossil fuels, the sexier for me. Check out the Tesla or the Fisker Karma car, designed by the same team that gave the world the Aston Martin.

Intellectual Property Developers

Peter Arkle

Caution! The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files. The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of “24” in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free.

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

We’re the post office, they tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content. Perhaps movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world, where music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product. Note to self: Don’t get over-rewarded rock stars on this bully pulpit, or famous actors; find the next Cole Porter, if he/she hasn’t already left to write jingles.

An Equal Right to Pollute (and the Polluter-Pays Principle)

Peter Arkle

In the recent climate talks in Copenhagen, it was no surprise that developing countries objected to taking their feet off the pedal of their own carbon-paced growth; after all, they played little part in building the congested eight-lane highway of a problem that the world faces now.

One smart suggestion I’ve heard, sort of a riff on cap-and-trade, is that each person has an equal right to pollute and that there might somehow be a way to monetize this. By this accounting, your average Ethiopian can sell her underpolluting ways (people in Ethiopia emit about 0.1 ton of carbon a year) to the average American (about 20 tons a year) and use the proceeds to deal with the effects of climate change (like drought), educate her kids and send them to university. (Trust in capitalism — we’ll find a way.) As a mild green, I like the idea, though it’s controversial in militant, khaki-green quarters. And yes, real economists would prefer to tax carbon at the source, but so far the political will is not there. If it were me, I’d close the deal before the rising nations want it backdated.

A Person (Dr. William Li) and a Word (Angiogenesis)

Peter Arkle

Angiogenesis is the process by which new blood vessels grow. This is good — except when it’s very bad, as in the case of cancerous tumors. Blood vessels are their supply lines. Dr. William Li of the Angiogenesis Foundation has called research in this realm the “first medical revolution of the 21st century,” and he should know. (I shouldn’t, given my lack of a medical pedigree, but I learned about it from my bandmate the Edge, who supports Dr. Li’s foundation.) Work on angiogenesis inhibitors is at the vanguard. In a world worrying about whether it can afford health care, advances in prevention are at a premium.

Factoid: Cancers start as tiny nests of malignant cells that do not enlarge until they recruit new vessels to deliver oxygen and nutrients; then a cancer can expand 16,000 times in only two weeks.

Matter Doesn’t Matter

Peter Arkle

God, it appears, is a Trekkie. (God help us.)

Dr. Anton Zeilinger, an Austrian physicist, is becoming a rock star of science for his work in quantum teleportation, which I know very little about but which I think I may have achieved backstage one night in Berlin in the early 1990s. At any rate, it seems to have something to do with teleporting properties or bits of information, not physical objects; even though Dr. Zeilinger plays down the possibility of a “Star Trek” moment, his breakthroughs are catching the attention of the nonscientific world for their metaphysical implications. His own version of E=mc2 ends in a cosmic punch line: that when it comes to the origin of the universe, information matters more than matter.

Could it be that God is a nerd?

Festival of Abraham

Peter Arkle

Here’s something that could never have happened in the Naughts but will maybe be possible in the Tweens or Teens — if there’s a breakthrough in the Mideast peace process. The idea is an arts festival that celebrates the origin of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Every year it could be held in a different location; Jerusalem would obviously be the best place to start.

In Ireland, at the height of the “Troubles,” it was said that the only solution for rabid sectarianism was to let 1,000 punk-rock bands bloom: music helped create a free space for dialogue (of a high-volume variety). So no politicians allowed. Artists only.

People Power and the Upside-Down Pyramid

Peter Arkle

A lot of us have seen or lived the organizational chart of the last century, in which power and influence (whether possessed by church, state or corporation) are concentrated in the uppermost point of the pyramid and pressure is exerted downward. But in this new century, and especially in some parts of the developing world, the pyramid is being inverted. Much has been written about the profits to be made at the bottom of the pyramid; less has been said about the political power there. Increasingly, the masses are sitting at the top, and their weight, via cellphones, the Web and the civil society and democracy these technologies can promote, is being felt by those who have traditionally held power. Today, the weight bears down harder when the few are corrupt or fail to deliver on the promises that earned them authority in the first place.

The world is taking notice of this change. On her most recent trip to Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bypassed officials and met instead with representatives of independent, nongovernmental groups, which are quickly becoming more organized and more interconnected. For example, Twaweza, a citizen’s organization, is spreading across East Africa, helping people hold local officials accountable for managing budgets and delivering services. (Twaweza is Swahili for “we can make it happen.”)

Taking the Fight to Rotavirus

Peter Arkle

The thing is, they exist, these vaccines. They’re not a mere hope, like an AIDS vaccine. And one of the brightest bits of news in 2009 is that rotavirus vaccines have been shown to work not only in nations with low child mortality, but in the poorest countries, where diarrhea (not a killer in our house) caused by rotavirus infections takes the lives of 500,000 children a year. The World Health Organization just this summer issued a strong recommendation that rotavirus vaccinations be part of every nation’s immunization program. From this vantage point, I like the look of the next decade.

Viva la (Nonviolent) Revolución

Peter Arkle

“As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work,” President Obama said in his Nobel acceptance speech, “I am living testimony to the moral force of nonviolence.”

So, he might have added, are the Germans and Eastern Europeans who came out a couple of months ago to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Wall. And so are the brave Iranians who continue to take to the streets despite the certainty of brutal repression. Like Neda Agha Soltan, they are living (and bleeding and dying) testimony.

The start of the decade ought to be a time for a little bit of hope — not the wispy stuff, but battle-hardened hope, forged in the grim, purposeful spirit of the times. So I’ll place my hopes on the possibility — however remote at the moment — that the regimes in North Korea, Myanmar and elsewhere are taking note of the trouble an aroused citizenry can give to tyrants, and that people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi.

The World Cup Kicks Off the African Decade

Peter Arkle

It’s getting easier to describe to Americans the impact of the World Cup — especially the impact it will have in Africa, where the tournament is to be held this summer. A few years ago, Ivory Coast was splitting apart and in the midst of civil war when its national team qualified for the 2006 jamboree. The response was so ecstatic that the war was largely put on hold as something more important than deathly combat took place, i.e. a soccer match. The team became a symbol of how the different tribes could — and did — get on after the tournament was over.

This time round, for the 2010 World Cup, naysayers thought South Africa could not build the stadiums in time. Those critics should be red-faced now. South Africa’s impressive preparations underline the changes on the continent, where over the last few years, 5 percent economic growth was the average. Signs point to a further decade of growth to come. Canny investors will put more capital there. This in turn has the potential to shore up fragile young democracies across the continent.

It would be fitting if Nelson Mandela, who has done more than anyone for Africa’s rising, would kick off the opening ceremonies. If he shows up, the world will weep with joy.

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

U2 tour tops annual rankings in North America

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U2 may have suffered disappointing sales for their new album, but the Irish rockers were easily the most popular draw on the North American concert circuit this year, according to data issued on Wednesday.

The band sold $123 million worth of tickets to its stadium tour, while Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band came in second with $94.5 million, said trade publication Pollstar.

Among all-time tours, the U2 trek ranks at No. 5, Pollstar said. The Rolling Stones hold the record with $162 million from their 2005 outing. U2's 2005 tour is No. 3 on the all-time list with $138.9 million.

Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni said the overall concert business bucked the recession, mirroring a similar phenomenon at movie theaters. He said most people go to only one or two shows a year, and are willing to pay a premium for good seats.

U2 hit the road to promote its latest album, "No Line on the Horizon," which failed to generate any hit singles and sold a relatively modest 1.06 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Pollstar said the band played to 1.3 million people at 20 shows on the North American leg of its world tour, and charged an average of $93.77. The average price on the band's 2003 tour, when it played 78 shows, was actually higher at $97.

Piano men Elton John and Billy Joel's latest co-headlining stint came in at No. 3 in 2009 with $88 million, followed by rehabbed pop princess Britney Spears at No. 4 with $82.5 million, and hard-rockers AC/DC at No. 5 with $77.9 million.

Country star Kenny Chesney made the top 10 for the sixth consecutive year, landing at No. 6 in 2009 with $71.1 million.

As in years past, veteran rockers dominated the rankings, in part because they are able to charge more than developing acts. But the fresh-faced Jonas Brothers made No. 7 after selling $69.8 million in tickets to their young fans.

Fellow Disney star Miley Cyrus was No. 13 with $45 million, and country-pop starlet Taylor Swift was No. 35 with $25.5 million. Bongiovanni said he expected Swift to make the top 10 next year on the heels of a three-month North American tour that kicks off on March 4.

The top 10 was rounded out by the Dave Matthews Band at No. 8 with $56.9 million, Fleetwood Mac at No. 9 with $54.5 million, and Metallica at No. 10 with $53.4 million.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Full Text: Bono's Introduction to Robert Hilburn's New Book

Corn Flakes with John Lennon is out now

@U2, October 14, 2009
By: Bono

Bono has written the introduction to Corn Flakes with John Lennon, a new book of memoirs from Robert Hilburn, the longtime pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times. The book is out now (Amazon.com) and @U2 is pleased to have permission to reprint Bono's introduction in its entirety.

Introduction
By Bono

I'm not sure Robert Hilburn exists. I know he is not human. He might be a ministering angel or some kind of specter ... he is certainly an enigma. Bob doesn't drink or smoke, and his quiet conversation is the antithesis of the noisy, messy rock 'n' roll music he loves. He is the silent man on the other side of the "wall of sound." His is the clarity that the chaos of creativity is always attracted to.

His column in the Los Angeles Times put the fear of God into rebels of the lowest common denominator, but encouraged faith from wild iconoclasts. High priests of schlock 'n' roll withered rather than weathered the quietest storm that ever blew into town. Without ever being pious or elitist, he has the Levitical/Jesuitical energy of a keeper of the flame. So many of the artists he loved and detailed were consumed by the fire. It reinforced in Bob a reverence for the life force in rock—its truth-telling vitality rather than its corny mythologies, death-cult shtick, or tragic hipness.

This book documents his love of performers in country, rock, and pop and early hustles of Elvis and the Colonel; his love of words, with writings about Leonard Cohen, Hank Williams, Kris Kristofferson, and Bob Dylan; and his love of the chemistry set that is band membership, from the Beatles to U2 to Nirvana. All documented by his gracious person and unforgiving prose.

As a writer, his words have an economical sense and frugality that put him across the street from other great commentators and critics of the rock era, like Greil Marcus with his prosaic and professorial tone and the late Lester Bangs's beat-up poetry. For three decades at the Times, Bob steadily deciphered the shouts and hollers, whispers and miasma of a music business that rose and fell over the period he sat at his desk.

Success loves simplicity. Simplicity in our business, or indeed any business (particularly writing), is having an ear for the top-line melody ... harmony is critical ... counterpoint, rhythm, etc., but having an ear for the top-line melody is knowing the real event that's taking place in a room, the real point that's being made—the "what's actually going down" as opposed to the melodrama of media. That means that if you didn't have time to fully immerse yourself in the convulsive, controversial world of Public Enemy or N.W.A in the late '80s, Bob Hilburn could be trusted with dispatches from the front line. If you wanted to know what domestic life was like for Mr. and Mrs. Cobain, Bob would not be distracted from good housekeeping.

Intellectually and intuitively rigorous, Bob will let himself go - but to a sound, not to a "scene." The sound has to be articulate, even if the words are not, which might explain his early support for our not-so-humble combo from the north side of Dublin. He was always looking for subject matter that was fresh and patiently observed what Van Morrison described as "inarticulate speech of the heart." U2 was shambolic and erratic, but he seemed to see the "what might be" in the "what was."

Bob's role as critic was to encourage suspension of disbelief not just in the audience, but in the artist as well. That is an environment in which music grows. He made us better.

Many critics do bands the favor of contextualizing their work, and Bob certainly did that. But there was always the sense from him that too much reverence for the past can shut the future up. Though twice the age of some of his discoveries, he was a diviner of new talent, watchful for a through-line with what had come before, but scouting for surprises, whether it was Chuck D or John Lydon, John Prine or Axl Rose. He made the present porous, he argued the case for what was about to happen. I think the biggest kick for Bob was sitting on Planet Rock and watching the new wave breaking. He figured every generation had a resonant frequency and that his job was to be a tuning fork. Not remotely interested in passing trends, it was the purity of each pitch he was listening for — i.e., would it last? That ear again. Was it worth the fuss? We were not, at that time, but his words made us readier.

U2 arrived on the cover of the calendar section of the LA Times in March 1981, and it changed our fate. We have never played a concert in Los Angeles that did not sell out since then. The first time we met, Bob bought me an ice cream and kept his smile to himself as I tried so hard to explain U2's flavor-of-the-month status as a taste that would endure. When we hit a peak at the Los Angeles Coliseum, he explained our appeal in one easy sentence: "At a Rolling Stones concert," he said, "you feel good about who you are despite where you've been. At a Bruce Springsteen or a U2 show, you feel good about the person next to you."

All three artists would love that sentence to be true.

His admonishments were just as deft. On one occasion, high on the possibilities of U2's success and owning up to an array of nonmusical ambitions, I was chastened by his swift reminder of the many Beatles or Cole Porter songs I knew, followed by the question, how many of our songs did I think would be remembered after our scene had died down?

Bob Hilburn is too modest to talk much about himself. Not suffering from that problem, I got as close as you can get to a glimpse of him by forcing him to answer some of my questions in exchange for answering his. I was hungry to know what he knew and thought about luminous beings like Bob Dylan and characters like John Lennon, who had survived inhuman talent with their humanity. He would open up about his favorites, but as soon as I asked about his own life, he would head back to his office. When I asked repeatedly about his family, he rarely offered up any contradiction to the thought that they too might not exist. He was probably teaching me Modesty. I might have missed it.

What's remarkable about the book you hold in your hand is that for the first time he reveals himself as well as his subjects ... well, a little. Unlocking the puzzle of his own beginnings in music, he tells the story of his uncle Bill who was made an outsider by epilepsy and how tightly he held on to the recordings of Hank Williams. He reveals how he managed to hustle Elvis Presley into not calling him sir, and how Bruce Springsteen's honesty raised the standard for him and everyone. He sees the story of rock through the lens of his years and wonders a few times if he, and it, has peaked. He returns again and again to the same characters, hoping the answer will be no in both cases.

He is strangely, for a man who lives in the epicenter of it, almost immune to fame.

He can't help but laugh at a rendezvous of Michael Jackson and Prince.

With Bob Dylan, he treasures the moments that are unmasked, like Bob Dylan talking him through his conversion to Christianity or going for a coffee completely unrecognized at a truck stop in Chicago; and discovering John Lennon hiding chocolate from Yoko, who John constantly refers to as "Mother."

Maybe Bob Hilburn is a figment of our imagination, but the book exists. When John Lennon, in "I Am the Walrus," sings about "sitting on a corn flake waiting for the van to come," most folks picture a drug dealer or overlord. No one thinks of Robert Hilburn as the driver of the van. John didn't know Bob Hilburn when he wrote the song. After reading this book, you will think of no one else.

March 2009

Reprinted from Corn Flakes with John Lennon by Robert Hilburn (c) 2009 by Robert Hilburn. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc.

Art of the Highest Order: Robert Hilburn Reflects on U2

Robert Hilburn was an influential music editor and critic for the Los Angeles Times from 1970-2005. He left the newspaper to write books -- the first of which is the newly released Corn Flakes with John Lennon And Other Tales from a Rock N' Roll Life.

He recently spoke with @U2's Tassoula Kokkoris via e-mail about the book and his time with U2.

TK: Bono wrote a wonderful introduction for you in this book. Tell me about how he was chosen for the job.

RH: I was so touched by what Bono wrote. I asked him to write the introduction because I have probably spent more hours talking to him about music as just about any other artist I've ever written about -- not only hours during interviews but in wonderful "talks" after the formal interviews were over. I also was impressed by how eloquent he was in giving induction speeches for such artists as Bruce Springsteen and Bob Marley at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dinners.

TK: After seeing U2 perform at the LA Sports Arena on the War tour, you may have saved Bono's life with something you said in your Los Angeles Times review. You wrote, "When you have music as exciting and purposeful as U2, you really don't need a sideshow as well, especially a potentially dangerous one." This was in reference to him climbing the scaffolding at their shows, and following your review, he promptly stopped. As someone who had their life transformed by U2's music, I sincerely thank you for writing that. Furthermore, it seems that Bono has taken your advice to heart over the years. If you could give him one piece of advice right now, what would it be?

RH: That's a great question and I have a funny answer for you. One of the only reasons I felt bold enough to offer suggestions to Bono, both in print and in person, was that I met him so early in his career and he was so much younger than me. So I was often just trying to pass on advice about things I had seen go right or wrong in other artists’ careers. But then there was a point a few years ago when I did a short interview with him in Los Angeles. It was after the G8 concerts, which were designed to encourage wealthy nations to excuse the debts of third world countries. I had been so impressed by what he did in helping spearhead that cause and with the way he and the band had tried to reach out and comfort the nation in U2's post-9/11 tour. As he walked away that day, I looked at him and felt humbled. I realized how much he had grown since our first meeting in Los Angeles and how he was now leading us all. So, I'm looking to him for answers now. I think I've run out of advice -- other than keep respecting the music. I think "Moment of Surrender" was one of the best things U2 has written -- and a reassuring sign that he and Edge and Adam and Larry do continue to respect the music.

TK: Looking back on their entire catalog, what do you think is U2's strongest album? Why?

RH: I hate to say The Joshua Tree because it was so long ago -- and the band has done so much great work since then. But Joshua Tree was the moment where everything came together for the band -- the kind of explosion of heart and head and spirit that only happens once in a career. The Joshua Tree simply has the most memorable songs. As Bono has said, it truly feels that God is walking through the room when U2 performs "Where the Streets Have No Name," and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is as compelling an anthem. At the same time, look at the other great songs -- and the range of emotions involved: "With or Without You" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Running to Stand Still." Those are simply art of the highest order.

TK: Like most critics who interview U2, you seem to have spent the most time with Bono. Were there any memorable moments with the other three band members that you would like to share?

RH: I am very fond of everyone in the band. Edge is soft-spoken, but very smart, and it's good to see him becoming more visible, both in interviews and in such projects as the film It Might Get Loud. Adam has a wonderfully wry sense of humor and an interesting, independent look at the band and its history. Larry couldn't care less about interviews or the whole "celebrity" side of rock, but I enjoy talking to him because he speaks from the heart. What especially impresses me is that each has his own "take" on things. With most bands, the members seem, either consciously or subconsciously, to answer questions in the same way -- almost as if there is a party line. But each member of U2 speaks more independently so that each one adds to your understanding of the band and how it works. One thing I've found interesting being in the studio with U2 on occasion is how it's not Bono -- as many might suspect -- calling the shots. It's very much four people at work. For instance, I've seen Bono be extremely nervous when singing some new lyrics in the studio. At the end, he turns to the others for their thoughts. It's very much a group at work.

TK: The music industry hasn't adapted very gracefully to the advances in technology. Where do you see the future of music shifting both creatively and technologically?

RH: I have no idea where music is going and I have even less idea what rock's role will be in that music. At present in America, rock 'n' roll has become very much a minority sound. There are many great young bands, such as Arcade Fire, but they only speak to a small fraction of the music world because most of the media and audience are caught up in what I'd call the American Idol/Celebrity complex. American Idol may be entertaining television, but it has been horrible for the health of pop music because it is not producing great, revolutionary talents. It is producing very limited, mostly mediocre artists and those artists are dominating the charts. A friend of mine, who is head of one of the most powerful record labels in America, said the music industry comes up with about four "breakthrough" acts a year and, for various reasons, three of those acts are going to be American Idol related because radio plays those acts and media writes about them. If Bruce Springsteen came along today, the executive continued, he doesn't know what he could do with him because there's no window of opportunity for that kind of artist. I worry that he could have said the same thing about U2. Until the mass music audience starts demanding substance and passion and commentary again, pop music -- in terms of mass social impacts -- seems like it is very marginal.

TK: Do you think new bands like U2 have a place in this changing industry?

RH: Obviously U2 still has a place in the changing industry because they reached a mass audience back in the days when the pop music world was open to such artists. But when you say "new bands like U2," the answer may be far different. I'm not sure great young bands can build enough of a pop consensus to reach the level of a U2. I think the White Stripes (or Jack White) is one of the most exciting forces ever in rock and the Stripes (and White) are still, in many ways, an underground band. The same for Arcade Fire and Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst). There is great young talent, but it's not reaching the same mass of people as great bands in earlier eras. I've also been impressed by what I've heard from Muse, Glasvegas and the Avett Brothers, among many.

TK: Are there any bands out there today that have the potential to become the next U2?

RH: I don't know about being the next U2. Coldplay clearly wants to be and they've made remarkable strides in building an audience in this difficult time for rock, but they have to give us a Joshua Tree before we can even begin to talk about them in U2 terms.

TK: Where do you see U2 10 years from now?

RH: I hope they'll be doing great work, and I think No Line on the Horizon is a sign that they will be doing just that. I felt No Line was a difficult album in many ways because the themes and ideas were so complex. It wasn't an easy album to digest, but for those who stuck with it, No Line was an extraordinary series of reflections about life in our times.

TK: Throughout your book, the mentions of U2 are fraught with protective worry over one thing or another. In the early days it was Bono's stage antics, in the height of The Joshua Tree fame and even more recently, it was Bono's activism. Have you ever worried this much about any other band? If so, how? Do you have any present-day worries for U2?

RH: I worried at various times about Bruce Springsteen because he, in many ways, was leading the charge in the 1970s at a time when many people in America had given up on rock heroes. So many of the stars from the 1950s and 1960s had either self-destructed or lost their creativity or lost their values that it was hard for anyone to reignite the fire. But Bruce did it and I was worried whether he would stumble at some point -- and he did lose his way, as I explain in the book. I also worried about Kurt Cobain -- someone I thought might be able to have the kind of social impact of a Springsteen or a U2, but was so fragile. And those worries, sadly, proved to be justified. The only danger I see for U2 -- as I said before -- is losing respect for the music and I can't see that happening. They can be a great band for as long as they want to be.

TK: It seems as if you've written about every major music figure worth profiling. Is there anyone out there that you would still like to talk with? Or anyone who has passed away that you regret not interviewing?

RH: I've really been lucky in talking to and, in many cases, building a relationship with most of the important artists of the last 40 years. I wish Hank Williams had lived long enough for me to talk to him...I also wish Elvis Presley had done interviews and that two of my favorites -- Joni Mitchell and Neil Young -- had done more interviews in the 1970s when they were doing such brilliant work. I never interviewed Jimi Hendrix, so he would be high on my wish list.

TK: You seem to have a special fascination with songwriting. Would you consider writing a book just about that process?

RH: I did a series of seven stories for the Los Angeles Times on songwriting... 5,000-word pieces devoted strictly to the process of songwriting, and I just loved the way it turned out. I did separate pieces on Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Lucinda Williams, Merle Haggard, Ice Cube, U2 and one article devoted to both Jack White and Conor Oberst. I've been thinking about doing a few more artists and putting them into a book -- each one expanded to say 7,500 words.

TK: What's next on your list of projects?

RH: Well, I'm thinking about that songwriting book, but I also have a couple other projects in mind. I hope to start on one of them in January.

The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Why Are We Tiring of Obama?

I have an heirloom china pitcher on my mantle that has dozens of glued cracks—so much so that it is now purely ornamental and will not hold water. When I was a boy I’d ask my mother when, and under what circumstances, did the china crack apart.

She would provide stories about each fissure and mend, many of the break narratives handed down to her from her own grandparents in the house. There wasn’t one single accident, but instead dozens that rendered a once useful pitcher into an non-functional art object.

Something of the same is happening with our President. He is experiencing the sharpest popularity decline in the history of first-year administrations. The problem is not just that he inherited a bad economy; Reagan did too. Or that the war in Afghanistan heats up, since it is not nearly as bad as the mess Nixon inherited in Vietnam.

Instead, after 11 months there has emerged a series of bothersome incidents that the public has come to associate with Obama, both the man and his philosophies. Some are major policy issues; others trivial acts of no cosmic importance. None in themselves matter all that much. Each gaffe or mistake was contextualized and mended, or attended to by Robert Gibbs. Some are Obama’s fault; others the work of associates. Sometimes mere chance is the culprit.

I know Bush had his own list of catastrophes; other Presidents did as well. Again, my point is not trying to adjudicate relative culpability, but rather just to remind us all how and why Obama dived over 20 points in the polls in just 11 months—and his speeches transformed from inspirational to caricatures.

In short, taken together, after nearly a year, these fissures have nearly ruined the once pretty texture of the Obama administration, and almost rendered it incapable of effective governance.

Here is a random selection. I provide no chronology or theme. Nor do I judge the relative importance of any one incident. The point, again, is only that each was a fissure, some small, some major—all were glued over. The result is that now the public understands that its china presidency is fragile and held together by mere glue.

Here it goes:

Constant apologies abroad for everything from slavery to Hiroshima

Bows to Saudi royalty, the Japanese emperor, and Chinese autocrats

The on-again/off-again Guantanamo shut-down mess

The fight with the former CIA directors

The public show trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed

The reach out to Ahmadinejad Castro, Chavez, and assorted thugs

The Honduras fiasco

Czars everywhere

The serial “Bush did it”/reset whine abroad

The Queen of England/I-pod fiasco

Gordon Brown gets snookered in his gift-giving

Unceremoniously shipping back the Churchill bust

The end of the special relationship with the UK

The New York on-the-town presidential splurge

Anita Dunn and her Mao worship

Timothy Geithner/Tom Daschle/Hilda Solis and their taxes

What ever happened to Gov. Richardson?

“No lobbyists” = gads of them

The Podestas’ insider influence-peddling empire

Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” chauvinism

The Special Olympics silly quip

Trashing Nancy Reagan

The Skip Gates/police acting “stupidly” mess

The get-Chicago-the-Olympics jaunt to Copenhagen

Cap-and-trade boondoggle

“Millions of green jobs”

Ignore gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power production

Cash-for-clunkers

The Joe Biden gaffe machine

Jobs “saved” or “created” rather than references to the actual unemployment rates

Van Jones, the racist and truther

Desiree Rogers won’t testify

The blowback from, and silence about, the Rangel/Dodd corruption

The White House party crashers plan to take the 5^th Amendment

The ‘bipartisanship’ con

The pork-barrel stimulus spoils

The demonization of the Town-Hallers

The Acorn Mess

The Kevin Jennings/Safe School Czar embarrassment

The SEIU direct access to the White House

The Asian Tour comedown

The politicization of the take-over of GM and Chrysler

The Obama readjustment in the order of paying back car creditors

Car dealerships closed on shaky criteria

Obama as “Caesar”

The Emanuel “never let a serious crisis go to waste” boast

The Black Caucus/Rangel/Waters bid to bail out the inner-city radio stations

Yosi Sergant and the NEA

$1.7 trillion deficit

The planned $9 trillion added to the national debt

New income tax rates; health care surcharge talk; and payroll tax caps to be lifted

Rahm Emanuel’s promised payback to those states that trash the stimulus

The supposed C-span aired health care debate

The promised website posts of pending legislation

Czechs and Poles sold out on missile defense

Sermons to and finger pointing at the Israelis

The failed ‘Putin helps to stop a nuclear Iran’ gambit

Voting present on the Iranian reformers in the street

Serial but empty deadlines to Ahmadinejad

The good war/bad war twisting and turning on Iraq/Afghanistan

The months-long dithering over Afghanistan

Renditions, tribunals, Patriot Act, etc. once trashed, now OK

Health-care take-over

The 2,000 page proposed new health code

The embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize nomination

The attacks on surgeons, Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc.

The Islam mythologies in the Cairo Speech

The al Arabiya “Bush did it” interview

Obama’s TV “my Muslim faith” gaffe

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

O Come O Come, Emanuel. Will Democrats regret Rahm's wager on health care?

'Twill be the night before Christmas when the Senate delivers the top item on White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's wish list: a health-care bill. But like the beautifully wrapped gift that looks so wonderful under the tree, this health-care legislation might start to look more like the ghastly sweater from your Aunt Tilly once it comes out of the box.

Give Majority Leader Harry Reid his due. Notwithstanding the grumblings about the way he did it, getting the 60 senators he needed to avoid a Republican filibuster was an achievement. Assuming the House and Senate work out their differences, Mr. Reid's Christmas gift tees up the president for a triumphant State of the Union come January.

Yesterday President Barack Obama gave us a preview when he took a little victory lap amid a jab at critics who are "continually carping" about big spending. The health-care vote, he said, is "a big victory for the American people."

Whether it's a "big victory" for the Democratic Party depends on whether you buy Mr. Emanuel's wager about 1994. The Emanuel Wager goes like this: It was the Democrats' failure in 1994 to pass a health-care bill that ushered in the Gingrich takeover of Congress. In his own meetings with Democrats, former President Bill Clinton has pressed the same line.

This was the message Mr. Emanuel delivered personally to Mr. Reid, when he urged him to cut a deal with holdout Joe Lieberman. This was the message the president echoed two days later in the West Wing, when he told Democrats that no piece of legislation would be perfect. And this appears to be the message embraced by Mr. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, given their willingness to accept any amendment to get some health-care bill passed.

So here's the rub: Emanuel's Wager holds only if the merits of the legislation matter not at all.

That's a cynical view of politics. Of course, if you are Mr. Emanuel and you are looking across the table at senators such as Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieu, you can be forgiven for having your cynicism confirmed. Whether this same cynicism applies to the American people, however, is another question.

Here the signs should be less reassuring to Democrats. As polls have consistently shown, the more Americans learn about Democratic plans for health care, the more the opposition grows. Mr. Reid appreciates this dynamic, which is why he wrote his bill behind closed doors, when only Santa could have any real idea of who's earning a place on the naughty list.

If Mr. Emanuel is right, once health-care legislation is passed and Mr. Obama spins it as a huge victory, the American people will forget their objections and the Democrats will get credit for passing historic reform. If so, that will be some achievement. Because it means building on a health-care package supported by fewer than 38% of Americans (the RealClearPolitics poll average).

If the merits do matter, by contrast, passing this bill could prove more costly than failure. Mr. Obama has been unequivocal in his public statements. In his telling, this legislation will lower costs, reduce the deficit, help small businesses, maintain the status quo on abortion, offer Americans more choices, and so forth.

All these promises may look different when the details emerge, and we learn what change really means. If the president's promises do not hold up, all these Obama statements will be chopped into campaign ads that cut right to his credibility. As for his allies in the Senate, the 60 to 40 party-line vote to close debate means that every Democrat there can be held up as the deciding vote.

It's also unclear whether the traditional standbys for avoiding public accountability—e.g., hiding behind procedural votes—will fly this time. In the last few months, the American people have been watching. And they have learned a great deal about filibusters, manager's amendments, reconciliation, special Medicaid sweeteners for special states, etc.

So they are not likely to be fooled by a senator who tries to have it both ways: by voting to keep this bill alive when his or her vote could have stopped it (Monday morning's cloture vote), and then voting against it (the coming Christmas Eve vote) when passage was assured. Remember how well it worked for John Kerry in the 2004 campaign when his words explaining his votes on a supplemental to fund our troops were thrown back at him. Explained the then-presidential candidate: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

Mr. Emanuel was right to tell his fellow Democrats that the price of failure would be to make them all look weak. The question is whether there will be a larger price for looking arrogant.

Write to MainStreet@wsj.com

Harvard Business Review: Play On

Play On

Sunday, 20 December 2009 18:11 Jonathan Yip

Music, politics, and celebrity in the age of Bono

Bono jumped eagerly across the stage, swinging his microphone. The Edge launched the guitar intro for "No Line on the Horizon," the drum line paused, and the towering stage lights flashed, and Bono began.

In front of me soared a 160-foot tall, $25 million claw-shaped stage. With a production cost of $750,000 a day, the U2 360° Tour is every bit the dazzling spectacle one expects from the band that will not stop growing. Around me, 80,000 dancing fans had come to worship the only mega-band left. In DC, NYC, and Las Vegas, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Clinton have all paid their respects to the tour. Today, U2, like its monstrous stage in Gillette Stadium, straddles our musical-and political-landscape. For the 33-year old U2, there does seem to be no line on the horizon.

Last of the rock stars

Despite a few close brushes with irrelevance, U2 has somehow managed to stay at the forefront of the popular psyche. In an age when the musical scene is fragmented and changeable, U2 continues to leave an outsized footprint on pop culture that neither Coldplay nor Kanye West can approach. This September at Giants Stadium, Bono humbly pointed out that U2 filled more seats than the Pope's mass held there previously.

Why does U2 still have such allure? It is not merely popular music and a brilliant front man, but a reflection of a culture that has allowed U2 to become more than just a band. It has allowed the group to expand out of the musical sphere and into the political, becoming a phenomenon only the 21^st century could have created.

Bono opens for Conservative Party leader David Cameron in the UK. Movie theaters show U2:3D. Ten million people across the globe watch a U2 concert live on YouTube. Bono shared Time's 2005 Person of the Year award with Bill Gates and founded the pervasive Product (RED). U2 has been uniquely poised to breach the crumbling walls between pop culture and policy, cultivating pure cultural power.

"We built this spaceship on rock and roll."

Since its start at an Irish high school in 1976, U2 has always written deeply political songs, from "Sunday Bloody Sunday," commemorating Northern Irish violence, to "New Year's Day," in honor of the Solidarity movement. All the same, though U2 had a big break at Live Aid charity concert in 1985, the first thing that concerned the band and their fans was music.

At the time, no politicians took musicians seriously. There never could have been meetings with senators or working partnerships with Harvard professors, as Bono would later develop with economist Jeffrey Sachs.

During U2's early 90s ZooTV tour, a massive, media-saturated, ironic series of concerts, Bono called President George H.W. Bush on stage every night, knowing full well that he would be rejected each time by the White House.

Bono was making a point: politicians are inaccessible, irresponsible, and worthy of mockery. Musicians and politicians were on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum, never to cross paths.

Walk On

After the relative failure of 1997's Pop, an experimental electronic album, the band seemed to be flagging. Its frontman, in particular, began to explore side projects, eventually latching onto Jubilee 2000, a campaign to lobby for third-world debt relief.

Bono grasped something that would change the way the world dealt with and interpreted fame. He realized that he could deploy his celebrity to galvanize and glamorize almost any issue.

Bono had to prove himself, of course. By all accounts, the frontman is more intelligent than the average pop star. President Clinton once recounted to Time an instance in which the Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, mentioned: "Some guy just came in to see me in jeans and a T-shirt, and he just had one name, but he sure was smart. Do you know anything about him?"

Since then, Bono has founded two successful NGOs, and has been summoned to the White House many times, toured Africa with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recently, he has become a popular guest columnist for the New York Times, but also finds common ground with conservatives, often turning to scripture to successfully appeal to President Bush or even the late Senator Jesse Helms.

Bono, after years of concentrated smooth talking and dedication, managed to inject himself into the world of policymaking as a man to be taken seriously. He, unlike almost any other star, has deftly melded the worlds of politics and celebrity, becoming a powerhouse in both, casting aside the convention that once kept them separate.

"Sing with us."

U2 has allowed this passion for politics to pervade its live performances. U2 360° is three parts rock spectacle and one part motivational preaching. From dedicating "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to the Iranian freedom movement, to singing about Aung San Suu Kyi, U2 has become an overtly political band.

By all appearances the audience laps it up. They eagerly text the ONE campaign, sign up at the Amnesty International booth, and cheer for a deposed Burmese leader that most have never even heard of. Some, apparently, are even willing to appear on stage wearing masks with the house-arrested Prime Minister's face.

While Bono and U2 have done a great service by raising awareness for the Millennium Development Goals and Africa's plight, the concert gives the audience good vibrations without actually assigning any real responsibility. At worst, the political content of the performance actually absolves us of action. It's unclear what good it does to have Nobel laureate and real hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, tell the audience, while name-dropping the tour, that the "same people who marched for civil rights are the same people who protest Apartheid in South Africa ... are the same beautiful people when I look around this place tonight in 360°." In all likelihood, we are not the ones who fought against apartheid or for debt relief. Praising us for having done nothing seems counterproductive, even duplicitous, but for me or any concertgoer, it is a hard deal to resist. We pay for a concert ticket, listen to our favorite music, and get lavish moral praise for struggles we never participated in.

The tour and band's politics have been stretched so thin it is hard to perceive U2's message as anything more than "doing good." U2, for better or worse, has become diluted beyond recognition, standing only for stardom and righteousness. Perhaps the formula for everlasting relevance is to shed all irony and embrace star power. Bono has developed the perfect celebrity persona for our age: political, passionate, and pervasive. We all want to be a hero and rock star at once: U2 puts us on the stage.