US Secretary Of State Antony Blinken has been in the news a lot lately, mostly for toothlessly urging Israel to tamp down its wholesale slaughter in Gaza while refusing to actually do anything that might stop that from happening. Whenever his face pops up, it’s hard to shake the image of proud dad-rocker Blinken adapting an exaggerated blaccent to cover Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coocie Man” at a state department function last fall. In the face of all that, Blinken is still out there rockin’, and he seems to think he’s making some kind of point.

Yesterday, Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Kyiv. Ukraine is currently suffering heavy losses in its war with Russia, and Blinken wanted to assure the people of Ukraine that America supports them. During his visit, Blinken took the time to drop in on a Kyiv basement bar and to grimace his way through a cover of Neil Young’s 1989 classic “Rockin’ In The Free World.” According to the BBC, Blinken told the bar crowd, “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.” Look, I don’t like it, and you don’t like it, but there it is.

There’s too much going on here. Does Antony Blinken recognize the irony of Neil Young’s extremely angry song? Does he have any idea about how shitty these optics are? Doesn’t the State Department have someone on staff who can urge Blinken to never touch a guitar in public again? The man doesn’t even look like he’s having any fun anymore. He seems like he’s just doing this out of a grim sense of duty, like the fate of the free world depends him rockin’ in it.