Politics as Spectacle

In the spring of 2004, I had the chance a million 30-somethings would give their iPods for: I shook hands with Bono. For Oxfam, I had helped set up his trip to Ottawa to lobby Paul Martin. When he gripped my hand and the cameras clicked and whirred, the Irish singer wore the nervous grimace and wary body language one might expect in any celebrity, but his bowlegged, swaggering walk and trademark glasses were all his own.

A few moments earlier, the star had spoken clearly and knowledgeably to the press about raising Canada’s aid to the long-promised 0.7 percent of gross national income. He congratulated the prime minister for past decisions on debt relief and AIDS, but chided him for failing to increase aid as another 50,000 people died that day from preventable causes. Reporters ate out of his palm. Mr. Martin, sitting beside him, just beamed.