Det skal ikke være nogen hemmelighed, at denne blogs forfattere har indtil flere U2-albums og har også rost flere af dem her. Til gengæld har vi et noget anstrengt forhold til sangerens i mere end én forstand umusikalske gerninger. Der er nu kommet en særdeles biografi om Paul Hewson, og den bliver anmeldt i The Guardian af den ikke helt ukendte britiske litterat Terry Eagleton. Han skriver bl.a.

In fact, as Browne points out, he has cosied up to racists such as Jesse Helms, whitewashed architects of the Iraqi adventure such as Tony Blair and Paul Wolfowitz, and discovered a soulmate in the shock-doctrine economist Jeffrey Sachs. He has also brownnosed the Queen, sucked up to the Israelis, grovelled at the feet of corporate bullies and allied himself with rightwing anti-condom US evangelicals in Africa. The man who seems to flash a peace sign every four seconds apparently has no problem with the sponsorship of the arms corporation BAE. His consistent mistake has been to regard these powers as essentially benign, and to see no fundamental conflict of interests between their own priorities and the needs of the poor. They just need to be sweet-talked by a charmingly bestubbled Celt. Though he has undoubtedly done some good in the world, as this book readily acknowledges, a fair bit of it has been as much pro-Bono as pro bono republico.

Det er egentlig derfor, jeg er så træt af “verdensmanden” Bono. Om han er kynisk eller naiv, ved jeg ikke. Formodentlig rummer han begge egenskaber; det kræver sit at leve med kombinationen af Make Poverty History og skattely. Paul Hewson ender under alle omstændigheder med at legitimere en masse ubehagelige individer og organisationer, og det er de tydeligvis glade for. Det er ikke noget tilfælde at Harry Brownes bog hedder The Frontman.