SEE THAT MY STAR IS KEPT CLEAN: Carson, Gore, Ray

Tom Carson is predictably, astutely hilarious in his Voice obit:

...Reaganism had beauty. Even if you knew better, it was seductive. The best description, or possibly just evidence, I know is the oddly forgotten Talking Heads song "Road to Nowhere," from 1985's Americana-flavored Little Creatures. A hymn that evolves into a march tune and then a full-on cattle drive, complete with "Hah!"s and get-along-little-doggie percussion, it's one of David Byrne's most insinuatingly phrased preacher rips, with imagery swiped straight from the Gipper himself: "There's a city in my mind/Come along and take that ride/And it's all right." Even as the odyssey the listener is being asked to sign up for turns flagrantly nuts—"Maybe you wonder where you are/I don't care"—the song's eerily dissociated exuberance inveigles you; you still want to join. If it's an anti-Reagan song at all—and with Byrne, who ever knows?—it's anti-Reagan in the same sense that "Heroin" is anti-shooting up...

And although there are many links to The Gore Speech, the one from Springsteen's own page seems the most compelling, given that this is a rock star who took a lot of heat when jocks started showing up at his 1984 shows to hear "Born in the U.S.A." and never really came out explicitly against Reagan. Turn Gore's text over in your mind for a couple days and it gets larger, more impressive. This is the guy who got cheated out of office, dropped out of the current race, and still makes the most cogent arguments against W.'s tyranny. Bruce brought Al Franken up on stage with him at Shea Stadium last fall, but somehow this cuts deeper:

President Bush offered a brief and half-hearted apology to the Arab world - but he should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions. He also owes an apology to the U.S. Army for cavalierly sending them into harm's way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders. Perhaps most importantly of all, he should apologize to all those men and women throughout our world who have held the ideal of the United States of America as a shining goal, to inspire their hopeful efforts to bring about justice under a rule of law in their own lands. Of course, the problem with all these legitimate requests is that a sincere apology requires an admission of error, a willingness to accept responsibility and to hold people accountable. And President Bush is not only unwilling to acknowledge error. He has thus far been unwilling to hold anyone in his administration accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and mistakes in the history of the United States of America.

He is willing only to apologize for the alleged erratic behavior of a few low-ranking enlisted people, who he is scapegoating for his policy fiasco.

Finally, here's Jimmy Guterman on Ray Charles.