By Bob Boldt

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Two of the President’s most odious ceremonial functions must be the elevation of scoundrels and the ritual humiliation of true cultural heroes with medals of degraded alloy.

On Thursday, May 31 there was an unveiling of the twin portraits of George W and his little mouse. My mind often wanders while watching such undignified attempts at patent insincerity to fantasies of Justice Department officials jumping from behind the curtains and dragging W away in cuffs: “We got ya now you SOB—never thought this was a setup did ya?”

This travesty was preceded by the Tuesday “knighting” of Robert Allen Zimmerman. This is the saddest picture I ever had hoped to see. Dylan, who in the 60s would have welcomed just such an opportunity to spit in the eye of a Master of War like President Obama, now placidly allowed a symbolic albatross to be hung around his neck.

Of course he hasn’t written anything memorable in forty years. But I was hoping, for old time sake, to see just a hint of the old Tambourine Man.

Could it be that perhaps the joke was on Obama after all? I heard that it was not Dylan himself who received the honor but a clever animatronic developed by the imagineers at Disney.

Perhaps the times they still are a changin’

“Dylan (born in 1941), a significant and oppositional cultural figure in the early and mid-1960s and others received the medals at Obama’s hands the same day the New York Times reported the president’s personal and apparently eager supervision of a “kill list,” a regularly updated chart of those to be illegally assassinated by the US military or CIA.”

(Hence the appearance of slight traces of blood not completely scrubbed off the President’s left pinky finger in the official photograph)

"Would this further and appalling confirmation that Obama was a war criminal have deterred Dylan from appearing at the White House? Most likely not. Administration officials no doubt make certain that those slated to receive the awards can be counted upon."

 (Where is Eartha Kitt now that we need her?)

"Of course, among the recipients of the Medal of Freedom this year, in any case, were the current president’s fellow war criminals former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Israeli President Shimon Peres (not in attendance).”

(Do you think Perez suspected a trap?)