The Weekly Rewind

It's the end of another week. We all know what that means.

The Weekly Rewind... rewind... rewind... (did anyone else hear that echo...echo...echo...?)

Take 'em as you will... the Weekly Rewind starts in "Bush's America"... [rimshot]...

...right now! [plink]

Sigh, well, that's what happens when you buy a gong off of ebay...

Applaud: to military-types that haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid and are calling for Secretary of Defense Donald “sorry, I'm too tired to make up a nickname, so please make your own” Rumsfeld to resign. It seems the calls for him to go quietly into that good night are getting louder and louder as two more retired U.S. generals called for him to resign yesterday. Nice… about 6 years too late, but at least it’s coming around.

Heckle: to the events that transpired 141 years ago yesterday (Friday April 14), specifically that of John Wilkes Booth assassinating President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre.

Applaud, Heckle, your choice: to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walston for threatening to impose a gag order by barring statements or disclosures to the news media by both Libby's defense team and the special prosecutor investigating “Scooter” Libby. Not sure if this will work as leaks tend to happen in D.C., but I suppose it’s worth a try.

Applaud: to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission for “temporarily suspended” Operation Last Call (for those of you who hadn’t heard, this was a plan to send undercover agents into bars to arrest drunks. You read that right, into BARS to arrest drunks. I could understand if they sat outside the bar and arrested drunk people getting behind the steering wheel, but arresting people in a bar… even if they’re not disorderly sounds a little preposterous… but that’s just me and my silly love of civil liberties)

Heckle: to “President” Bush, and his puppet Scott McClellan, for standing by Rumsfeld. Bush didn’t actually speak on Rumsfeld, but had McClellan talk him up at a briefing yesterday with Scott saying things like “The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation's history,” and reading quotes from Marine Gen. Peter Pace that praised Rumsfeld's dedication and patriotism. My personal opinion is that Rumsfeld WAS one of the great political minds of the country and may have been a brilliant mind earlier in his career, but I think his time has come and he needs to resign before he allows more U.S. servicemen to be killed or, to a lesser importance, harms Bush’s administration… I really don’t care about that mind you.

Applaud: to the ever-dropping approval numbers for Dubya. WaPo-ABC poll is 38% and AP-Ipsos poll is 36%, and now 54% don’t feel confident with Bush handling the situation in Iran… I wonder why??? Iran needs to be stopped (and to those who are asking ‘why didn’t Iraq have to be stopped’ show me the proof that Iraq had uranium and nuclear weapons, than we’ll talk – remember, conservatism is a mental disease) but I don’t think Bush is the answer. Allow the U.N. to actually do something (that wouldn’t be a first would it?) and let’s see what happens before we get all “Rambo’ed” up and get involved in a 3rd war.

Heckle: to Zacarias Moussaoui. I think we all know why. What have I said on this blog before about him?? I remember now, ‘Kill the fuc***’ my thoughts on this haven’t changed one bit.

Applaud: to a universal lack of kool-aid drinking. Commander Cuckoo-Bananas speeches about Iraq aren’t working at convincing Americans to not only approve of the way Bush is handling the war (the numbers for that have dropped back to 32%) but to also have faith that his administration knows what they are doing and have an exit strategy. (Finally! A glimmer of life and intelligence in the American public in finally seeing Bush as what he is. Let’s hope it lasts…)

Heckle: to the “discovery” that FEMA “produced vast sums of waste and misspent funds…” Well, duh… did we really need an internal Department of Homeland Security audit to tell us this?? Didn’t we all know this already?? Talk about waste and misspent funds.

Applaud: to Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) for trying to demolish partisan politics (did I just write that?? Wow, I did…). Once again, the Gov. has appointed a Democrat (and one of his harshest and most outspoken critics) to a prestigious position within his administration, this time to the California Board of Education.

Heckle: to the Bush Administration for their pathetic response to the break of the mobile weapons lab story this past week. From McClellan asking for an apology from the media to trying to pass it off as a non-story (here’s a question, if it’s a non-story, why is the White House so keen on gettting an apology from the media?? Hmmmm… I wonder…)

Applaud: to inner-party lethargy. And by ‘lethargy’ I mean indolence towards their party leader. It seems quite a few Republican politicians are declining visits by President Bush. Due to constantly low approval ratings, some Republicans are suddenly unavailable when the president comes to town. Examples: Ohio, Sen. Mike DeWine cited scheduling conflicts during three presidential visits this year. Pennsylvania, Sen. Rick Santorum appeared briefly with Bush during a visit late last month, but held no public events together. Illinois (and this one is my favorite example of displaced loyalty) Gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar-Topinka stood quietly by as an aide stated that her campaign would like the president to raise money in the governor's race “late at night, in an undisclosed location.” (Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant…the more in-fighting and discourse in the GOP with their leader can only help us in November…if the Dems ever decide to get off their asses and ACT)

Heckle: to the politicizing of a tradition, namely the White House Easter Egg roll. I don’t care about your politics, I don’t care about your sexual orientation, what I do care about is taking something that is for children and turning it into a (essentially) poltical sit-in. And before we blame the parents, let’s also blame the media, who were it not for them, would we even know that this was taking place??

Applaud: to ‘A Republican on the Edge.’ It’s about Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and the perception that he’ll have a tough road to re-election. I don’t really know, or care quite frankly, who he is, but I love the phrase ‘a Republican on the Edge.’ The edge of what I ask? Of a nervous breakdown… of a building… of the world… the mind just explodes with possibilities. Having said that, he is a Republican running for reelection in this November’s mid-terms, so a loss by him would be a good thing.

Heckle: to Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) for making staff members baby-sit his children while they were on his congressional payroll. I always knew that politicians on both sides had a tendency to be unethical, but having a staff-member baby sit your kid is better than taking money from a lobbyist in order to stiff some Native Americans or funnel money to a business where you receive kickbacks. Unless of course the kid has a messy diaper… then all bets are off!

Applaud: ???? I certainly hope this is an applaud. The U.S. government has released their plan for a Bird Flu outbreak. Pray we don't need it, and pray that the plan works.

That's all we got. See you all next week.