Boston -- It’s Academy Awards time.

One more big national flight of fantasy before the hard, sobering slap of reality that comes a scant month later with Tax Day.

As national awards go, the Oscars take the, well, Oscar. But it’s far from the only one.

Broadway has its Tonys (and off-Broadway its Obies), music its Grammys, television its Emmys, sports its ESPYs, and advertising its Clios and ADDYs.

Why stop there?

The past several years may have failed to yield healthcare reform, an end to partisanship or peace on earth, but they have been fertile breeding grounds indeed when it comes to ideas for new awards.

In fact, with this past year’s MTV Awards in mind, I propose the KANYES. (Or the WESTIES, if you prefer.) It would go to the award recipient (or award show participator) who goes above and beyond the call of duty to be a jerk and cast an awkward pall on the otherwise upbeat proceedings.

The award would take its name from rapper Kanye West, who grabbed the microphone from a stunned recipient (singer Taylor Swift) at the 2009 MTV Awards, and embarrassed everyone, including himself, by putting in a contrarian plug for his fellow singer, Beyonce.

Few areas have such promise for new awards as politics, though. In military parlance, it’s a “target-rich” environment.

The BUNNY would be given to an elected official for the most colorful and public use of expletives. This year’s recipient is the man for whom it’s named, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY).

Recently, Bunning performed a one-man filibuster in the senate, single-handedly preventing a vote on extending unemployment benefits to millions of Americans. When Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) pressed him (on the senate floor) to cease and desist, Bunning replied, “Tough s**t.”

Not quite the oratorical flight of a Douglas or Webster, but a lot more quotable.

Actually, the case could also be made that former Vice President Dick Cheney should get the first BUNNY retroactively to 2004. That was when Cheney, also on the senate floor (though not while the body was in session), told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to perform an anatomically impossible act.

It’s a close call with Bunning, but you have to give Cheney the extra profanity points.

The BROWNIE would go to the candidate who most cynically, but successfully, uses props to his or her advantage in a campaign. Not surprisingly, this year’s winner by acclaim is none other than newly-elected Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).

Brown gets the Brownie. Wow. I mean, what are the odds?

Brown wore a faded old barn jacket during his special election campaign, as if he was arriving at events having just parked the tractor and checked on the cows.

In truth, Brown has good use for the barn jacket, because he has legitimately spent a fair amount of time around horses. But not on a farm. At horse shows. In fact, he used to tow his younger daughter’s horse trailer around by his other award-winning prop, his GMC pick-up truck.

During the campaign, many supporters gushed about what a “regular guy” Brown was because, well, he drove a pick-up truck. Personally, I don’t think of horse shows where well-off suburbanites gather in their pristine pickups as places I expect to find many “regular guys,” but that’s me.

The truck and the jacket worked, and the BROWNIE is Brown’s.

The FRANKIE is given to the politician for the best public dissing of a voter or constituent. It’s named for U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who appeared to have this year’s award all sewn up for his ornery response at a town hall event in his district last summer.

Confronted by a woman who compared President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan with Nazi Germany, Frank asked her, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

That should have iced the award right there, but Frank seemed to seal things with this flourish to the stunned woman: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.”

But then, a strong competitor emerged for the FRANKIE.

During her own tough (and ultimately losing) senate campaign against Scott Brown, Democratic candidate Martha Coakley pulled off a public diss for the ages. The Academy had to take note.

Asked at a debate about her perceived lack of energy on the trail, she referenced Brown’s appearance outside Fenway Park before the National Hockey League’s “Winter Classic” game there on New Year’s Day.

“What do you want me to do,” Coakley asked sarcastically. “Stand outside Fenway Park, in the cold, shaking hands?”

It was like the “Titanic” or “Avatar” of disses: a genuine blockbuster. Frank dissed only one voter -- Coakely dissed them all.

This one’s a toughie.

Envelope, please!