Breaking news: Dylan endorses Obama

"We've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up -- Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to."

--Bob Dylan, in an interview published in today's Times of London

The Times interview appears on the occasion of the opening of an exhibit (at London's Halcyon Gallery) of a series of paintings Dylan has done based on the widely neglected Drawn Blank drawings he did in the early '90s, and published in 1994.

Interviewer Alan Jackson traveled to Odense, Denmark, to have his third go at Dylan, who was in the midst of a Scandinavian tour. It was as the interview was ending that Jackson inadvertently uncovered some breaking news:

My time with Dylan is up and we stand in preparation for my leaving the room. As a last aside, I ask for his take on the US political situation in the run-up to November's presidential election.

“Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval,” he says. “Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up -- Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.” He offers a parting handshake. “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future,” he notes as the door closes between us.

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