The Weekly Rewind

No pageantry today, just a simple intro to this week’s ‘Weekly Rewind.’

APPLAUD: to this site for getting over 500 visitors on Monday, 2/13. Not bad for a political blog by two laymen… (insert own “Brokeback Mountain” joke here)

HECKLE: to the horrific landslide in the central Philippines. Pray hard everyone… pray hard.

APPLAUD: to the news that the GOP’s stranglehold in Florida (them of the hanging chads’ and the Katherine Harris’) is diminishing. Why? Three words: ‘wet-foot policy’

HECKLE: to phony populism. Click HERE to get the explanation.

APPLAUD? HECKLE? Little of both: to Vice President Dick “Shooter” Cheney for coming clean about shooting his friend. And to think, it only took a ‘scant’ 95 hours and 10 minutes for him to speak publicly about it.

HECKLE: for Cheney’s choice of confession sites... Fox “News” What? A college news report wasn't available?

HECKLE: to the mild myocardial infarction (heart attack) suffered by Cheney’s victim. We were praying for him to get well… and he did, for which we throw an APPLAUD out there… but then we have to…

HECKLE: to Cheney’s victim. Speaking for the first time since the accident, Whittington told reporters he was sorry for all the trouble Cheney had faced over the past week. All the trouble… that… Cheney…. faced??? Wow, the lengths to which Republican’s will cover for these guys is absolutely amazing. He gets shot because the Veep is a lousy hunter, was drinking while hunting and apparently was not paying attention, and he apologizes??? Give me a friggin’ break…

APPLAUD: To numbers falling faster than an American’s score in Olympic figure skating. Usually, a President can expect a post SOTU-bounce for their approval numbers. Not so with Commander Cuckoo-Bananas… He actually dropped from 43 to 40 percent in the past month, according to the brand-new Harris poll (and to 39% according to the new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll) For those of you scoring at home (or even if you’re alone) his February approval ratings back to 2001 go like this: 56%, 79%, 52%, 51%, 48%, 40%… and dropping faster than Lindsey Jacobellis.

HECKLE: to Senator Pat “Call me Oral” Roberts (R-KS). In his world, if you’re a friend of his and you rob a bank, he'll “work with you” to “reach a deal” and change the law making it legal for you, and only you, to rob banks. This explains how Bush is now getting a free pass for ignoring the FISA law and spying on innocent Americans---much the way, say, a dictator would. Thanks Bill in Portland Maine.

APPLAUD: for breakdowns in the making. Yet again, Scott “Me fail speech? That’s umpossible” McClellan became hostile towards a reporter during a press conference this past week. How much longer will the administration allow this train wreck to act as Press Secretary? The winner of Best in Show could do a better job than McClellan…

HECKLE: to abuse of power. The Bush(Whacked) Administration disrupted a Senate bid to look into the Administration’s wiretapping program. Why? Sounds to me as if they have something to hide, but apparently we’ll never know now. (Secrets. Damned lies and secrets are what this administration does best… that and cronyism)

HECKLE: to Michael “Don’t blame me, I didn’t do it” Chertoff. The head of the Department of Homeland Security appeared on Capitol Hill this past week to speak of his department’s incredibly piss-poor response to Hurricane Katrina. While his acknowledgement of the department's lapses deserve a little APPLAUD, his overall response boils down to: Mistakes were made. What do you want me to do about it now??

APPLAUD: to DHS for suggesting some changes to FEMA. About frickin’ time Mr. Chertoff... even though it does come about 6 months too late.

HECKLE: To Tom Malin. He’s running in the Democratic primary for Texas state representative and recently acknowledged that he once worked as a prostitute. Although, it didn’t hurt Jeff Gannon’s career any, so what the heck, maybe it should be an applaud…

HECKLE: (Eep) to the Patriot Act, which is moving closer to renewal. Run and hide everyone, run and hide… or just hide your civil liberties in a hole in the backyard.

APPLAUD: to Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby for pointing fingers where they should be pointed. Rather than take the fall for his boss, Libby did something that many politicians find hard to do… he told the truth. This didn’t bode well for Cheney at first, but then Cheney did something that leads to an…

HECKLE: to Veep Dick “Dead Eye” Cheney. After hearing Libby’s testimony, Cheney suddenly got religion and stated that he has the power to declassify classified information. What was it I said above about secrets and lies? Add making up their own laws in their head to that as well…

APPLAUD: to this quote from Minnesota Vikings QB Daunte Culpepper: “… and anonymous sources are usually synonymous with cowards who don't want to go on the record.” Brilliant!

That’s all for this week. It’s been a crazy week… from a vice-presidential shooting, to strange weather, to a show dog on the lam, to [insert your own' strange lifely occurance' here]... this week has been full of surprises and shocks.

Wonder what’ll happen next week?