“In an interview several months later with Edna Gundersen in USA Today, Dylan was asked about the absence of any song about the current (Iraq) war on his own latest album, Modern Times. “Didn’t Neil Young do that?” he jokes . . . “What’s funny about the Neil record, when I heard ‘Let’s Impeach the President,’ I thought it was something old that had been lying around. I said, ‘That’s crazy, he’s doing a song about Clinton?’”
“And indeed, any scrutiny of the record would show that he has never endorsed a political candidate (although some political candidates have endorsed him). The closest he has ever come would be the statement in his memoir, Chronicles, that his “favorite politician” circa 1961 was Barry Goldwater.”
“Consider also: Dylan never spoke out against the Vietnam war in the 1960s. Not once. It was not for want of being asked. At a 1965 press conference in San Francisco he was asked if he would be participating in an anti-war protest later that day. He replied, “No, I’ll be busy tonight.” The tape shows that he was all but laughing while he said it.”
“Despite the heat he took, he backed down not one bit. In an interview in Sing Out! magazine in 1968, Dylan was pressed on how any artist could be silent in the face of the war. Dylan talked about a painter friend of his who was in favor of the war, and said that he “could comprehend him.” Pressed further on how he could possibly share any values with such a person, Dylan responded: “I’ve known him a long time, he’s a gentleman and I admire him . . . Anyway, how do you know that I’m not, as you say, for the war?
The topic was dropped there.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12727&R=11621B2BC
Ain’t Bobby so cool?