The Weekly Rewind

We’ve heard about it enough this week, so this Weekly Rewind is a Super Fat Tuesday-free zone… enjoy.

Applaud: to the DNC for finally growing a set… albeit a small pair. They disqualified Sen. Joe Lieberman (I r-CT) as a superdelegate earlier this week after he endorsed Sen. McCain for president. (about time they do something to show him up and slap him around for being a republican… now if only they had the balls to do more, like get him off of some of the more important committees he’s on. But this is definitely a good start…)

Heckle: to “President” Bush and his 2008/2009 budget… do I really need to elaborate on this? I didn’t think so…

Applaud: to Britain’s Prince Andrew. Earlier this week he let go a scathing attack on “President” Bush for “failing to listen to Britain during the conflict in Iraq.” Prince Andrew went on to say that because of that, most Britons have been left with “healthy skepticism” whenever something is said in DC… so there’s another country that doesn’t think highly of us anymore… will a new president be able to rectify this, or are we screwed?

Heckle: to speaking out of one’s ass…again During his speech to the CPAC Friday morning, “President” Bush told the crowd that Vice President Dick Cheney is “the best vice president in history.” (WHAT!!?? Are you kidding me??? Ignoring for a fact that a majority of the American people have a VASTLY different opinion on that as a scant 28% of American’s approve of the job Cheney is doing as vice president, there’s also over 221,000 Americans that have signed a petition calling for Cheney to be impeached… but in Bush’s eyes, he’s the best VP in the history of the US… which only goes to show you that Bush is either totally ignorant of American history – very real possibility in itself – or that he is so far out there, that he may never come back down to earth. My money is on the latter…)

Applaud: to Mark Moody-Stuart. Who’s he you ask, he is the former chairman of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, who called on the European Union to ban gas-guzzling cars earlier this week, saying; “Nobody needs a car that does 10-15 mpg.” (Nice… well said Mr. Moody-Stuart… too bad more people in your area of expertise don’t see things that way…)

Heckle: to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. It was five years ago this week that Powell stood up at the UN and spoke about Iraqi WMD’s, saying; “The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world.” As it turned out, it was a bold-face lie. Sure, some people claim that Bush and his cronies lied to Powell, but it’s still a sad day for a man that once had promise and a bright future in American politics. Now, his political career is all but over… and for that, Bush should be ashamed of himself…

Applaud: to, once again, CREW… this time sending a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey that asks him to appoint a special council to investigate “whether the White House violated federal record-keeping laws by knowingly failing to preserve and restore millions of emails.” (Nice job guys… claims of executive privilege by the White House in 5, 4, 3…)

Heckle: to Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson. After the Philadelphia Housing Authority refused to “transfer a $2 million public property to a developer” who is a business friend of Jackson’s “at a substantial discount”, Jackson has retaliated against the agency by sending “dozens” of “menacing” threats over an 11-month period… my question is simple. Why the hell hasn’t an investigation been open about this?? This is a blatant example of mis-use, and yet no one seems to be paying attention… but of course this is how the Bush(whacked) Administration works…

Applaud: to the House of Representatives. In a 354-58 vote the House approved legislation earlier this week that looks to ease rising college costs and limit student debt. Additionally the bill would also expand federal Pell Grants to summer-school students and would address conflicts of interest in the student lending industry… (About. Time.)

Heckle: to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The Wall Street Journal released its forecasting survey this week and economists gave Bernanke “the lowest grade of his two-year tenure — 75 out of 100 points — and said it was increasingly likely the nation’s economy would tumble into a recession.” Economists that took part in the survey put the odds of a recession at 49%, up from 40% in the January survey and 23% last June… (Nuff said…)

Applaud: to the American public for not allowing Bush’s lame-duck status interfere with their feelings for him. According to a new AP/Ipsos poll Bush’s approval rating is at 30% and most American’s can “barely stand the thought of President Bush” anymore… sometimes the snark just writes itself…

Heckle: to conservative activists Crystal Dueker and Rich Holt. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two are attempting to build support for their 527 group Think Condi at this week’s CPAC. The group is a “grassroots movement to get the secretary of state on the presidential ticket as vice president” because Dueker and Holter believe that Rice is “the best running mate for McCain” because she would be able to bring Bush supporters into McCain’s corner… (Ewww.. I feel unclean just reading that…)

Applaud: to long-time correspondent Helen Thomas. Do I really need to give a reason? Ok, how about for sharply criticizing “President” Bush and his administration earlier this week, calling it “one of the most secretive in history.” (Helen, I wish we had more like you…)

Heckle: to the U.S. Forest Service for approving a permit that will allow a British mining company to explore for uranium “just outside” the Grand Canyon. (First of all, as I said earlier this wee – like in ANWR – it’s NOT exploring, it’s drilling. Second of all, why? In Alaska they are looking for oil so the US is not beholding to OPEC countries… but why drill for uranium in the Grand Canyon? Can anyone answer that? Anyone? Heloooooo?)

Applaud: to some top Pentagon officials that haven’t drank the Bush Kool-Aid. Earlier this week while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the group said that Bush’s plan to withdraw some 20,000 U.S. troops from Iraq this summer would “do little to relieve the stress on the Army and Marine Corps.” (While the news they reported wasn’t applaud-worthy, we applaud their ability to tell the truth and ignore the BushCo lies… we all knew that this was going to happen… Bush and his phony war have pushed our military so thin that we are more at risk than we have been since 9/11… but the fear-mongering right won’t hear of that… 1/20/09 can not come soon enough…)

Heckle: to more talking out of one’s ass… but this time it’s not Bush. Earlier this week while AG Mukasey today, Rep. Lamar Smith (r-TX) insisted that “99% of Americans would support” waterboarding. Perhaps Mr. Smith, assuming he can watch anything other than Fox “News” should look into things before he speaks… as a recent CNN poll showed that 58% of Americans say the U.S. should not be allowed to use waterboarding against suspected terrorists…

Applaud: to the audience at CPAC booing John McCain even though they were told to not boo him… (Just goes to show you that conservatives can’t follow even the simplest directions… makes you wonder would have happened if they were told NOT to throw rotting fruit??)

Heckle: to even more speaking out of one’s ass… wow, we’ve finally found something the Bush(whacked) Administration is good at, you know, besides lying. Vice President Dick “President” Cheney was speaking at CPAC this week and offered an “aggressive, unwavering defense of the Bush administration” and, after someone asked if he would invade Iraq again, declared “You’re damn right I would.” (Is it possible that we have found someone who is every further out of touch with the American people than Bush? Cheney has always been rather rapid… but to say that he would invade Iraq again is an insult to every man and woman who has lost their life to this mis-led war… I would say he should be ashamed of himself, but we all know he has little to no heart)

Applaud: to the AFL-CIO (did I just write that?) for filing a lawsuit against Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. The suit claims that the new Labor Department disclosure rules “should be held unlawful and set aside.” (The applaud is more so for someone having the balls to fight the administration and it’s labor-union killing ways than for the lawsuit itself…)

Heckle: to AG Michael Mukasey for refusing to answer the question of whether or not he had been instructed by Bush not to enforce the subpoenas of Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten. (Like Gonzales, Mukasey is a tool, plain and simple…)

Applaud: to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) for placing a hold on the nomination of Mark Filip to be deputy AG. Sen. Durbin wants it held until AG Mukasey answers questions on torture and detainee abuse cases that are in three letters Durbin sent to the DOH starting back in 2005. (While it’s my state’s junior senator that gets most of the attention, it’s our senior statesman that works behind the scenes and gets things done… quietly without much fanfare… and I think that how he likes it…)

Heckle:(just in case you thought we were done with this line of heckles, we aren’t.) To even MORE talking out of one’s ass. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified earlier this week that a failure to provide legal immunity in FISA legislation to telecom companies “will have far-reaching consequences” and would “severely degrade the capabilities” of intelligence agencies to protect the country… how??? That’s all I want to know is how… and an example, I want one true and real example of how all of this crap has protected our country… just one... Welllllll? We’re waiting…

Applaud:to, once again, the American People… a new AP/Ipsos poll that Americans want to end the recession is to end the Iraq war, with a scant 19% of those polled saying they plan to go out and spend the money from the rebate checks in the economic stimulus package compared to 45% whom responded that will use the checks to pay down debt. But the results we want to applaud is that 48% said a pullout would help fix the country’s economic problems “a great deal,” with an additional 20% believing that it would help at least somewhat… (Again, more and more people are not only waking up to how bad Bush is, but also that the country is in a recession and that the war is a primary reason for that… acknowledging there’s a problem is always the first step…)

Heckle:to “President” Bush… today on Fox “News” Time’s Mark Halperin said that, behind the scenes, Bush has “told people for months that he thought McCain would be the nominee. Even during some of those dark periods he still thought he could win. And also that McCain would be the best to carry forth his agenda.” (As if we needed any more reason to NOT vote for McCain, now we have Bush’s endorsement of him… ‘nuff said…)

And this week, like always, we at TBWA institute had a hell of a time narrowing a large playing field to get down to one, but we did it… so I present this week’s conservative tool of the week… I thought briefly about naming F*e* P*e*p* because of his plans to picket the funerals of last week’s southern tornadoes and the victims of the Tinley Park, Illinois mall shootings, but I don’t want to give more press to the putz than he’s already gotten… and besides, I think we can all agree he’s a TOOL of the Millennium without any input from Scott and I… so we picked someone else…

Mitt Romney.

Sure, he’s almost bad enough that we could say; just because and most people would shake their heads in agreement, but we have actual reasons… first, despite that fact that he continuously said he was NOT going to drop out of the race after Super Tuesday he did just that during his speech at CPAC, where he also utilized that gop tradition of fear-mongering, criticizing Senators Obama and Clinton during his speech of retreat, claiming that an electoral victory by either of them would mean “attacks on America. [...] About this, I have no doubt.” (Way to take the highroad there Mitt... your pathetic trolling for the vice presidency is only beaten by your inane comments and fear-mongering… and that’s why he’s our; conservative. Tool. Of. The. Week.

Take ‘em as you will…