Fighting in Helmand ...6:27 pm
As Independence Day approaches in the U.S., those who pay the price of keeping us independent are heavily engaged today.
In the largest offensive operation by US Marines since the retaking of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, Brigadier-General Larry Nicholson said that the American troops had run into stiff resistance in some areas. He confirmed that the Marines had taken casualties, with the death of a first soldier in combat.
The US push into the southern districts of Nawa and Garmsir is intended to clear an area known to British forces as “The Fishhook” because of the shape of the Helmand River at that point. About 4,000 Marines are involved in the operation over a 55-mile front. The Taleban has controlled the area for the past three years.
Brigadier Nicholson said that while the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine force was making steady progress elements of the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Marines had run into fierce opposition. “For 2/8 there is a hell of a fight going on in the southern quarter of the sector,” he told reporters.
They need our full support, and that also includes the right of their commanders to ask for more troops when necessary. A disturbing editorial in the Washington Post today raised doubt about whether they can believe that they currently have that right.
Mr. Obama elected to defer decisions on Gen. McKiernan’s requests [for 10,000 more troops next year] at the time he approved this year’s deployment of 21,000 troops. So it was surprising, and troubling, to read Mr. [Bob] Woodward’s account of meetings in Afghanistan last month at which [President Obama's national security adviser] Mr. [James L.] Jones lectured U.S. commanders about the offense they might cause the president by asking for more forces. Mr. Jones was quoted as saying that such a request would cause Mr. Obama to have “a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment” — military jargon for the expression “what the [expletive].” He further declared, in reference to Iraq, “we are not going to build that empire again.”
What “empire,” we wonder, was Mr. Jones talking about? That of the successful “surge” — or that of the years before, when the Pentagon chronically failed to deploy enough troops to secure Iraq? It’s true, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pointed out, that a larger American force could prompt a backlash by Afghans. But that is not the problem at the moment: According to polls, most Afghans still favor the presence of American troops.
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Sarah Palin steps down (to step up) ...5:04 pm
So, Governor Palin is resigning, effective July 26th, giving the governorship to her lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell. From a press release:
Standing outside her home in Wasilla, Alaska, Governor Palin reflected upon some of the administration’s accomplishments for Alaska as she approaches her final year in office.
“I am determined to take the right path for Alaska even though it is not the easiest path,” said Governor Palin after the announcement. “Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional ‘Lame Duck’ status in this particular climate would just be another dose of ‘politics as usual,’ something I campaigned against and will always oppose. It is my duty to always protect our great state. With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success. I look forward to helping others - to fight for our state and our country, and campaign for those who believe in smaller government, free enterprise, strong national security, support for our troops, and energy independence.”
The transfer of power will occur following the Governor’s picnic in Fairbanks on July 26. At that point in time, Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell will be sworn in and Lieutenant General Craig Campbell will assume his role as Lieutenant Governor.
My instantaneous analysis goes like this:
Sarah Palin had already decided to pursue the presidency in 2012. Meanwhile, she was up for reelection in Alaska next year, 2010. Had she stuck in and run for governor again, everyone would be accusing of her of not planning to finish her term. And, indeed, the presidential race would be starting in earnest just as she was being sworn in for her second term. Ergo: Sarah Palin had already decided not to seek a second term.
Then, however, came the deeper kind of calculation. You can take what she is giving as her rationale for resigning at face value, and I do give it some weight; namely, that Alaska will be better served now by having a governor in place who is not a lame duck. That is, the new governor will presumably be running for election in 2010 and people in the state and in the legislature will know they have to continue dealing with him. That should make for better government (and also a better chance for Parnell to win the election).
But there’s also another element, perhaps. That is — now knowing for sure that she’s running for president — the Democrats, at both the state and national level, would have had their sights trained sharply on her during her final year and half as a governor. There are many ways to cause trouble for people in politics and in government (many have already been tried on Sarah Palin) and who knows that mischief might be generated in the continuing attempt to bring this woman down? Investigations, faux scandals, etc. It continues to amaze me just how much she is hated, and with what level of vitriol her foes in the media (and even in certain corners of the GOP) continue to lob fireballs in her direction.
She will now be on somewhat safer ground as a private citizen. She will also have the time to focus intensely on issues at a national level, by means of speeches and the like, and demonstrate whether or not she truly has the stuff to earn the nomination in 2012.
On that, I’m agnostic (it’s only 2009 for Pete’s sake!) but I do look forward to seeing her try, and I do wish her well.
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Addendum 5:45 pm: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell claims sources who tell her that Sarah Palin has decided she’s done with politics. That is not how Palin’s own statement fell on my ears. Time should tell, and soon enough.
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Bobs and Ends ...2:50 pm
Waiting for Hank: Fred at Dreamtime has sleuthed out a little anecdotal evidence regarding Bob Dylan’s “Hank Williams Project” — i.e. the project of getting other songwriters to put music to the lyrics found in Hank’s briefcase after he died. Specifically, Fred’s post is about a story that appeared in March 2009 on a Lucinda Williams website, describing Lucinda’s contribution to the album. Further assurance that the project is real (not that we doubted that) and that it is inching along slowly but surely. I do hope we get to hear it this year.
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Forgetful is unforgettable: Bob’s poignant live arrangement of Forgetful Heart (previous post to this one) is touching a lot of people, I think. Mary at BabyBlueOnline posts some reflections on it, including another two cents from Yours Truly.
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There’s a new blog called Dylan Songs, which invites you to “share your art, music, poems, stories, videos, personal memories and creations that have been influenced by Dylan.” I don’t know who’s behind it, but it did get a promotion on the official Bob Dylan Twitter feed. In any case, the first thing posted is an interesting short-story by sometime RWB correspondent Kim Luisi. Read it at this link: Searching for Allen Ginsberg.
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Last night in Sauget, Illinois, Bob Dylan again performed Forgetful Heart and Jolene, and also introduced the brilliant and emotive ballad This Dream of You. For reasons I can’t comprehend, we somehow don’t seem to have the audio yet. (It’s like we’re back in the 20th century or something!)
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Thursday, July 2, 2009
A spine-chilling Forgetful Heart from Bob Dylan in Milwaukee ...9:16 pm
How’s this for blurring the lines? Bob Dylan’s official website has posted a fan recording, from YouTube, of Dylan performing Forgetful Heart in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last night. And here it is:
No video there, but Bob was reported to be center-stage with just his harmonica on this one. A really dynamite performance.
In the recent interview with Douglas Brinkley, Bob reiterated his antipathy towards being recorded by every Harry, Dick and Tom who goes to his concerts. Yet, nothing dramatic is ever done by what you might call “Bob Dylan, Inc.” to stop or strongly discourage the sharing of his concert recordings online. It seems like there are people running things who well understand the huge benefit that the vast Bob Dylan online world provides in terms of nurturing his overall profile and, if you like, adding to the legend. Two albums in a row entering the Billboard chart at number one are a pretty good measure of success. And posting a fan recording in this way at the official website seems like a sign that the symbiosis has been well and truly consummated.
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- One more note on “giving away” Theme Time Radio Hour
- On bootlegging and on critics: Bob Dylan talking to Douglas Brinkley in Rolling Stone
- Virtually exciting
News Trauma (Happy Fourth of July) ...4:40 pm
(See more of Ben Lansing’s cartoons at his website.)
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Tour starts in Milwaukee ...10:18 am
Bob Dylan kicked off his summer tour in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last night, at the Marcus Amphitheater. Willie Nelson was a “co-headliner;” John Mellencamp will join as another one today and it will continue that way for most of the rest of the tour, ending in mid-August.
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Previous to this, Bob had only played one track live from his newly released album Together Through Life
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Wednesday, July 1, 2009
RWB gets taken to school on Bob Dylan ...12:24 pm
Here in New York City there is an institution called the 92nd Street Y which offers, among other things, adult education courses. One such is a course on Bob Dylan taught by a devoted and knowledgeable Dylan aficionado named Robert Levinson. Yesterday he had a guest lecturer in the person of Bob Cohen, formerly of the New World Singers (with Happy Traum, Gil Turner and Delores Dixon), and a fellow-traveler — so to speak — with Bob Dylan in those early years in Greenwich Village. Some time ago I posted here a piece written by Bob Cohen recounting some of his memories of and reflections upon Dylan: “How Blowin’ In The Wind Came To Be.” 
Bob graciously invited me and Mrs. RWB to sit in on the class yesterday evening. Also speaking was a writer named Billy Altman, who ably illustrated some of the sources which Dylan draws upon with Together Through Life
Bob Cohen engagingly reminisced about the old times and the old scene and about Dylan, and he also shared some of his considerable insights on the art of song generally, often breaking into snatches of this or that number to illustrate his points.
The highlight of the evening for me was when he picked up an accordion and sang an impromptu version of one of Dylan’s newest songs, This Dream of You. It’s his favorite song on the new album (as indeed it is mine). Before singing it he told of how he and his wife Pat, listening to it in the car, had more or less simultaneously come to the conclusion that it seemed to be not just an ordinary love song but instead a song addressed to the singer’s Maker. (Bob was not religious back in those Village days, but now he’s a practicing Jew and indeed the cantor of a synagogue in Kingston, New York — check out his website for his whole scoop.) By the end of his performance Bob Cohen had the class gamely singing along on the chorus. I found it extremely poignant; of-course, it’s a beautiful song, and Bob’s a very fine singer and musician. But I think it also struck me so poignantly because of who Bob Cohen is; he and Dylan were at one point part of the same crazy milieu back there in the early 1960s in New York. Their lives followed very different trajectories, and yet, in a certain way, they have both ended up singing the same song.
So, it was an evening I won’t soon forget, nor Mrs. RWB, and thanks again to Bob for having us.
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Monday, June 29, 2009
Mark on Leonard ...9:29 pm
Mark Steyn, as part of his always diverting “Song of the Week” series, has a delightful piece today on Leonard Cohen’s song Dance Me To The End Of Love. It begins with his reflections on the difficulty songwriters have always had in coming up with interesting ways to use the very limited number of rhymes for the word love. Cohen did spectacularly well in this song, Steyn argues. Read his whole piece — but he included a quote from Cohen that was news to me, as regards the genesis of the song:
It’s curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that’s why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt.
Click here to listen to the song on YouTube.
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Sunday, June 28, 2009
On Watered-Down Love (going out to Governor Mark Sanford) ...2:28 pm
Well, I didn’t plan on writing anything about the troubles of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, his wounded family and his Argentinian lover. Like, I am sure, many others of a conservative bent, I was just dismayed to see another Republican of fairly strong repute falling to a scandal, and I preferred to avoid the story as much as possible. Yet, the story is out there in such a public way — thanks in part to the apparent openness and straightforwardness of both Mr. and Mrs. Sanford — that it does have elements of the salutary parable to it. By all appearances, it does seem that this is not the usual case we see in political life of a serial philanderer finally getting his comeuppance, but rather the case of a poor schlub who genuinely fell for someone in an initially unintentional if still stupid and adolescent fashion.
And then a reader (thanks to Linda) alerted me to an oblique Dylan connection in the whole thing. (… continue reading …)
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Friday, June 26, 2009
A changing climate of opinion ...11:02 am
From Kim Strassel at WSJ.com: (… continue reading …)
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Final note on Troopathon 2009 ...8:43 am
Troopathon 2009 had raised a grand total of $603,049.14 by the end of last night. Our glorious Anti-Jihadist team of bloggers has been credited with the fantastic total of $9,298.72! We came in third in the blogger rankings, behind the late-surging Greyhawks team with $17,146.06 and the first place Hot Air Steamers with an amazing $24,704.36. Thanks to all who contributed. By all accounts these care packages mean a lot to the troops, and you can’t say more than that. (… continue reading …)
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Thursday, June 25, 2009
Troopathon 2009 — Finishing today ...1:31 pm
Quoting our brave captain, Robert Spencer: (… continue reading …)
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