Bob Dylan on Barack Obama, the weird South, and Ulysses Grant (a better writer than Dylan remembers, but boring). What fascinates Dylan, as ever, is the intersection of performance and character, or rather, the degree to which performance creates character. Good and bad as a priori determinants matter less than, to quote one of his better songs, simple twists of fate; I'm pretty sure he would salvage something meaningful from George W. Bush's autobiography once Bush has "written" it:

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

Bob 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. He says profoundly outrageous things. He’s looking at a shrunken head inside of a glass case in some museum with a bunch of other people and he’s wondering if any of these people realize that they could be looking at one of their ancestors.

Bill Flanagan: What in his book would make you think he’d be a good politician?

BD: 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. I think he had a job as an investment banker on Wall Street for a second - selling German bonds. But he probably could’ve done anything. If you read his book, you’ll know that the political world came to him. It was there to be had.

BF: Do you think he’ll make a good president?

BD: I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.