"The Good Lie" (Ecco/HarperCollins), by Tom Rosenstiel
Ex-Army investigator and political fixer Peter Rena and his partner, Randi Brooks, are taking on their next adventure in the swamp of Washington, D.C., and the central event is a deadly attack on a diplomatic complex in North Africa. This may sound familiar to many.
The team of Rena and Brooks quickly find themselves assigned by the president to find out what happened and why. There are careers at stake, from the White House on down, as well as foreign policy goals of an administration winding up its term.
Author Tom Rosenstiel, a veteran reporter and observer of the Washington political scene, has carefully researched — with the help of other Washington veterans — how such political fiascos can tie the capital city in knots.
His effort to realistically capture such an unfolding event requires the reader's attention, especially to the many characters introduced early. Recreating a convoluted disaster like this diplomatic attack and the subsequent "Star Chamber" inquiries, with its paralysis of guilt and suspicion, is no easy feat.
Rosenstiel, with his vivid descriptions of the city, its neighborhoods and halls of government, as well as the interplay of the powerful people there, is up to the task.
Rena and his team of investigators rapidly learn that the circumstances of the attack are very different than first reported — and very troubling.
As they interview more veterans of the intelligence business and navigate through the churning political waters, Rena, Brooks and their assistants uncover more disturbing details about the diplomatic attack.
Rosenstiel seems intent on exploring the many different kind of scandals and misadventures that can unfold in the nation's capital.
In the first Rosenstiel book about Rena and Brooks, "Shining City," he traces a more straightforward story about the vetting of a Supreme Court choice and the background threat of a shadowy killer. In "The Good Lie," he takes on the tougher, more complex task of looking at how the capital city descends into paranoia after the deadly diplomatic attack in North Africa.
Watching what Rena and Brooks take on next, if they have another adventure ahead of them, should be both interesting and an education.
Will Lester, a political writer for The Associated Press for a dozen years, is an editor in the AP's Washington Bureau.
Follow Will Lester on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wjlester
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Fresh from a day of delivering optimistic prognoses about how Ukraine would fare in the war with Russia despite gloomy news from the front lines, U.S. Secretary of State and amateur musician Antony Blinken may have thought he had the perfect upbeat song to perform with a Kyiv bar band on his fourth visit to the capital since the conflict began in 2022.
“I know this is a really, really difficult time,” Blinken told a packed crowd in the subterranean club Barman Dictat on Tuesday night.
“Your soldiers, your citizens, particularly in the northeast in Kharkiv, are suffering tremendously,” he said. “But they need to know, you need to know, the United States is with you, so much of the world is with you. And they’re fighting not just for a free Ukraine but for the free world, and the free world is with you, too.”
With those words and strumming a red guitar, Blinken and the local group 19.99 launched into Neil Young’s hit “Rockin’ in the Free World,” ostensibly to encourage Ukrainians to keep up the fight against Russia and hold to their Western aspirations, despite numerous battlefield setbacks that led President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a day later to cancel all his upcoming foreign trips.
With its refrain “Keep on rockin’ in the free world,” Young’s 1989 song sounds like it should be an homage to the glory of living in the West, uncompromised by communism or authoritarianism. In fact, as numerous social media critics noted, the tune is a lament about despair and misery caused by homelessness, drug addiction and poverty in the celebrated free world.
A charitable interpretation might be that Blinken chose to perform the song to underscore the importance of overcoming adversity by sticking to ones’ dreams of peace and freedom. After all, that had been the general theme of his remarks at events in Kyiv since his nearly pre-dawn arrival after an overnight train trip from Poland and it would continue to be on Wednesday.
“I’ve come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone,” Blinken had told an audience of students and educators at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute shortly before taking to Barman Dictat’s basement stage.
“Never bet against Ukraine,” he said at a Wednesday news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
But as Blinken sang the “keep on rockin’ in the free world” chorus, which is repeated 12 times in the 4-minute 40-second song, Russian troops were advancing near and around Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, and Zelenskyy was in the process of deciding to put off a planned trip to Spain and Portugal later this week to deal with the crisis.
Thus, any intended musical encouragement — in both content and venue — left at least some observers scratching their heads.
Kyiv-based analyst Oleksandr Kraiev, director of the North America program at the Ukrainian Prism think tank, said Blinken’s visit was welcome but pointed out that he and many Ukrainians were puzzled by his two-day stay, including his stop at Barman Dictat, which was seen as inappropriate by some, given the current fraught wartime climate.
“From my point of view, and generally speaking from the point of view of common Ukrainians, it was not a very appropriate sign to go to the bar to have a small song with our band,” he said, noting that Ukrainian military recruitment officers are known to go to bars and nightclubs to check documents and catch draft dodgers.
“So (for the) secretary of state of the United States also to go to a bar, to have a small concert for people who are blamed for not enlisting in the Ukrainian army,” Kraiev said, "it's not, let’s say, a catastrophe, it’s not a faux pas, but it’s something that is not very desirable from the point of view of common Ukrainians.”
U.S. officials with Blinken shrugged at the online criticism the secretary was receiving about his song choice and decision to sing at a bar. They also said he wouldn’t have done the event if he had thought it was inappropriate.
More broadly, the possible disconnect between the week’s battlefield developments and Blinken’s optimism was reflected in his activities and the size of his delegation.
Unlike on all of his three previous wartime trips to Kyiv, Blinken brought a full complement of staff and press with him. And while security was tight, he spent a good deal of time away from meetings with government officials, engaging with university students, civic leaders, local businesspeople and, of course, bar-goers. And, unlike on all of his previous visits except his last visit in September, he chose to spend the night in the city.
Yet, it may be “Rockin’ in the Free World,” its chorus and opening stanza — “There’s colors on the street; Red, white and blue; People shufflin’ their feet; People sleepin’ in their shoes; But there’s a warnin’ sign; on the road ahead; There’s a lot of people sayin’; we’d be better off dead.” — that the visit is remembered for.
As the band hit the opening notes, Blinken commented wryly: “I don’t know if we can pull this off.” And, then, according to the official State Department transcript: “(Music was played.)”
Samya Kullab contributed.
From left, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Tom Sullivan and Spokesperson Matt Miller visit the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
