As Wilson was first being fingered as the heckler, lapsed Minnesotan Alex Pareene dug into his rap sheet: “According to nonpartisan sources @CongJoeWilson is the guy who shouted ‘Judas’ at Dylan.”

Pareene was conjuring up the 1966 incident at a concert in Manchester, England, at which a disgruntled folk devotee heckled Dylan with a Biblical reference. “I don’t believe you,” Dylan responded. “You’re a liar.”

It’s a short jump from Dylan’s “You’re a liar” to Joe Wilson’s “You lie!”

(If only Obama had answered Wilson by shouting “Judas!” … that would have been bringing it all back home.)

Heckling victims Dylan and Obama, meanwhile, are members of a mutual admiration society:

Interviewer: What else did you find compelling about [Obama]?

Dylan: Well, mainly his take on things. His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. …

For his part, Obama revealed to the Associated Press that the original Dylan-goes-electric tune is what’s on his iPod:

Actually, one of my favorites during the political season is “Maggie’s Farm.” It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric.

This is only according to one source, however, and not a very reliable one at that. Here’s what Bob Dylan told his “Theme Time Radio Hour” audience Sunday night:

I am talking to a couple of car companies about being the voice of their GPS system. I think it would be good if you are looking for directions and hear my voice saying something like: left at the next street, no a right — you know what? Just go straight. I probably shouldn’t do it because which ever way I go I always end up at one place: Lonely Avenue.

And if you’re driving anywhere near Newport, R.I., he’ll tell you to go electric … or at least hybrid.

Dylan may seem an unlikely object of an automaker bidding war for a disembodied voice of geographic correctness. For one thing, his recent wanderings through the streets of Long Branch, N.J., were directionless enough that he got picked up by the cops. For another, his voice is his own unique corruption of a Northern Minnesota accent that according to one intrepid journalist’s interpretation now sounds like a “coy jokester.”

But by the reckoning of the United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph, Dylan “could soon be directing drivers down Highway 61.” Or how about narrating a road trip to Kansas, with President Obama as a launching point:

He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas.

A safe bet would have Dylan working for Cadillac, if they’re still in business. He starred in a TV ad for Cadillac’s Escalade and XM satellite radio service in 2007:

[Via Greg Kjos]

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

RAMSEY COUNTY: “Buy American” sells well. St. Paul City Council members and and Ramsey County commissioners fall all over themselves to favor the products of United States labor with stimulus spending. [Workday Minnesota]

DULUTH: City councilors thinking about buying a laptop each. Like everyone else who doesn’t have one, except with city money. [Duluth News Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: First turf to be laid at Target Field today. The Minnesota Twins paid for the grass from a Colorado farm with change from under Hennepin County sofa cushions. [Minnesota Public Radio]

ST. PAUL: Pawlenty’s stand-up act fails to make adequate progress. Though credited with minting a new gag in Kissimmee, Fla., over the weekend in which he calls public school funding “Cash for Flunkers,” the Minnesota governor in fact has used the funny phrase before, as has Bill Maher even earlier and probably lots of others too. [Political Animal; NJ.com; jimgetten.com]

ALBERT LEA: What’s ailing the Elks? The fraternal organization’s largest Minnesota outpost is selling its building, having kicked out the Kiwanis and Lions, who also used it. [Albert Lea Tribune]

HIBBING: Dylan speaks! But why like that? The question “Is it true that people in Hibbing talk like Bob Dylan?” is correctly pronounced, ‘Is it true that Bob Dylan talks like people in Hibbing?‘” [Minnesota Brown; The Atlantic]

Roberts’ advice to Reagan included this:

It is also important to consider the precedent that would be set by such a letter. In today’s [Washington] Post there were already reports that some youngsters were turning away from Mr. Jackson in favor of a newcomer who goes by the name “Prince,” and is apparently planning a Washington concert. Will he receive a Presidential letter? How will we decide which performers do and which do not?

“The whole thing’s a scream,” observes David Weigel at our sister site, The Washington Independent. It’s well worth reading the Post’s full account for other delicious tidbits. For example, while dissing Jackson, Roberts judged Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” tour to be commendably “patriotic” —  suggesting that Roberts completely missed the album’s undercurrent of cynicism and doubt about the country under Reagan.

Strange that he would miss that, considering that he’s apparently a close reader of Springsteen’s hero, Dylan. In what’s thought to be the first occasion on which pop music invaded the sacrosanct realm of high court opinions, Roberts cited a Dylan lyric in an opinion last June:

The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing. “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).

Roberts’ predecessor as chief justice, William Rehnquist, liked light-opera legends Gilbert and Sullivan so much so that he not only quoted them in opinions but added fussy accessories to his judicial robes that looked like knock-offs from Gilbert and Sullivan costumes.

No word on whether Roberts wears a mid-’80s-style Springsteen bandana tied around his head while crafting opinions in chambers. Actually, Prince has provided a more judicial look in some phases of his career.

And Prince also gets political from time to time, most recently working federal bailouts and North Minneapolis’ progress (or lack thereof) into a jam on his latest CD. Indeed, at the time Roberts began writing his Jackson briefs, “Purple Rain” was days away from being released (the release date was June 25, 1984 — 25 years to the day before Jackson’s death) so youngsters would still have been digging earlier songs off his previous record, “Controversy”, including one called “Annie Christian” that mentions Reagan:

Annie Christian was a whore always looking for some fun
being good was such a bore, so she bought a gun
she killed John Lennon, shot him down cold
she tried to kill Reagan, everybody say gun control (gun control!)

Here’s a video of Prince, hand in pocket, performing a punked-up version of “Annie Christian” at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 21, 1981.

He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage — cattle raiders, lion killers.

Dylan’s recent interview with Bill Flanagan appeared in parts at the Times of London Web site and BobDylan.com. A few more bits that touch on Obama and politics:

What else did you find compelling about him?
Well, mainly his take on things. His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. …

What in his book would make you think he’d be a good politician?
Well, nothing really. In some sense you would think being in the business of politics would be the last thing that this man would want to do. …

What’s your take on politics?
Politics is entertainment. It’s a sport. It’s for the well groomed and well heeled. The impeccably dressed. Party animals. Politicians are interchangeable.

Don’t you believe in the democratic process?
Yeah, but what’s that got to do with politics? Politics creates more problems than it solves. It can be counter-productive. The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don’t think they have titles.

TimesOnline also has a new song, “Feel a Change Comin’ On.”

(h/t benpolitico tweet)

In between, especially in the Dinkytown area — where Bob Dylan, who playsed on campus last tonight, made his folk-singing debut — student sign-wavers stood on every corner flashing blue Obama signs. At University and 15th avenues SE, a young woman waved a hand-drawn sign that read simply, “HOPE.” (The “O” had Obama’s wheatfield logo inside.) Obama’s face looked out from “VOTE” signs on every utility poll up and down University Avenue and Fourth Street SE, two of the main campus thorough fares.

State Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis), who is running for her 19th term in the Minnesota Legislature (and ran to her polling place at Marcy School for her morning jog), said today’s scenes of massive turnout already surpass anything she has seen in her 44 years in Minnesota.

That may seem nuts in a Minnesota election season in which it’s alleged that some candidates don’t even buy their own clothes, but consider that the Excelsior entrepreneur is competing in a contest that’s said to be among the most competitive (and expensive) in the country, with money pouring into the campaigns of the other two candidates — Democrat Ashwin Madia and Republican Erik Paulsen — from national groups. The latest poll shows Dillon’s a factor in the race. And it’s not like he isn’t asking for help with a donation form at his campaign Web site.

UPDATE: Where is the money going? Campaign manager Bruce Anderson tells the Minnesota Independent that radio ads for Dillon will air as soon as Thursday, or by next week at the latest. TV ads aren’t out of the question, Dillon tells MnIndy; he likes the idea of seeing his black-and-white “Subcommittee on Homeland Blues” Bob Dylan spoof spot – filmed on location in a Dinkytown alley — during the evening news. 

Of the self-funding total, Dillon says he considers $100,000 of the $122,000 to be a loan to his campaign. Was that the funding plan all along? “It’s all very abstract until you start getting $50, $100, $500 checks,” Dillon says, conceding that despite being a longtime policy and economics wonk, politics is new to him. “Did I hope to do more [fundraising]? Yes. But it could be worse.”

For whatever naivete he professes, Dillon said he knew even at the outset what he was butting into: a bare-knuckled, two-party struggle to replace Ramstad. The Independence Party’s ban on special interest donations wasn’t going to cut it, he realized. “Otherwise it’s like I’m going to a gun fight with a knife,” he remembered thinking, despite a previous aversion to the concept of special interest money in politics.

As it turned out, the party’s ban doesn’t extend to federal races. But Dillon’s descent into tainted special-interest cash didn’t last long anyway, and therein lies a story that explains in part his high ranking on the self-funding list.  

In January, Dillon traveled to Washington, D.C., for Homeland Security work related to federal anti-counterfeiting efforts. His business is printing, so he decided to hit up the Printing Industry of America (PIA), a trade group, for a campaign donation.

The PIA brought along representatives of a half-dozen other organizations to meet Dillon — a random group of prospects that might find his family business CEO/entrepreneur profile appealing. “The Thorasic surgeon folks were there,” Dillon recalled. So were insurance industry people — who, it turned out, held contradictory goals on whether reimbursements should go up or be held down.  

The result was the group gave Dillon of a list of 100 more prospects … and a $1,000 check. The PIA attached only a single string: It let it be known that they did not want to see the introduction of a national do-not-mail list along the lines of the national do-not-call list.  

Dillon took the check and left the room, telling himself, “Well, I’ll be damned. This is exactly how it works.” It was his first and last special interest donation, he says. He set aside the list of prospects.  ”I just couldn’t do it again.”