The Weekly Rewind

TBWA is “fundamentally strong”, “ready to lead”, and could run a major corporation, but unfortunately we didn’t invent the Blackberry…

The Weekly Rewind starts… RIGHT NOW!

Applaud: to more and more people seeing the truth. According to a new CBS News/NY Times poll, 68% of Americans think Sen. McCain would either continue the policies of “President” Bush or enact more conservative policies. Additionally, in the same poll 57% view McCain as a “typical Republican” and not as a maverick. (This is good. The more people can see that a vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term the better. Spread the word everyone…) Add to that the fact that a new AP/National Constitution Center poll shows that two-thirds of Americans “strongly oppose” giving the president more power at Congress’ and the court’s expense, even when it talking about national security or the economy.” altering the balance of power to strengthen the presidency and you have the makings of a Democratic win in November…

Heckle: to a rough week on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 504.48 points earlier this week, the biggest decline since Sept. 17, 2001 (which was the first day back after the 9/1. Also, the nation’s largest insurer, AIG, faced a cash crunch that grew more severe by the minute earlier this week after credit-rating agencies warned investors that the company could have great difficulty in meeting its obligations, so the state of New York allowed them to use “$20 billion from its own insurance subsidiaries” as collateral for loans to “run its day-to-day operations. At first the Feds said it wouldn’t offer AIG any “direct injection from the government” but reversed that and seized control and agreed to lend “up to $85 billion” to the company, essentially giving the government a 79.9% equity stake, after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers further smacked The Street down. Let’s hope it ALL rebounds very soon…

Applaud: to being caught in a lie…again. Last week, McCain made the outrageous claim that Gov. Palin never sought earmarks as Alaska’s governor. Well, state records show otherwise and prove that Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to “fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects” over the last two years including a staggering $130 million that would benefit Alaska’s fishing industry and another $9 million aimed at helping Alaskan oil companies. (When are people going to see that neither of these two are mavericks and are compulsive liars?)

Heckle: to perilous situations that likely won’t end well. Pakistani Army Spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said earlier this week that Pakistan’s military has ordered its forces to “open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid” across the Afghan border. (Awwww crap!)

Applaud: to Michigan Democrats for having the balls to try and block a republican effort to deny voting rights to people facing foreclosure. They filed an injunction aimed at prohibiting the gop from challenging Michigan voters whose homes are on foreclosure lists, a form of “voter caging.” (Way to go guys, keep it up. With everything that comes out of McCain’s mouth a possible final death knell to his campaign, republicans are going to get more desperate and try to do anything they can to help themselves in November. Let’s not let them do that…)

Heckle: to hiding behind your office. The Alaska attorney general said earlier this week that state employees that were subpoenaed in the ethics investigation of Gov. Palin will not testify and the office has asked that the subpoenas be withdrawn. (Nothing to see here folks, move along…)

Applaud: to getting something right. The Feds said earlier this week that they will not allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give their soon-departing chief executives golden parachutes, yanking away the chance for them to earn $9.8 million and $14.9 million respectively for making a mess of things… (Impressive that the government would not allow that... makes you wonder what they’re up to)

Heckle: to the Democratic members of the House of Representatives for voting earlier this week to end the moratorium on new offshore oil drilling. Applaud for tweaking the measure enough to piss off republicans by giving states the right to allow drilling 50 to 100 miles off their coasts… (Though I guess the good news is that we should expect gas prices to start dropping soon, right? I asked right?? Helllooooo??)

Half-hearted Applaud: to the news that “President” Bush will not attack Iran before his term ends in January as former Cheney adviser David Wurmser told The Jerusalem Post earlier this week that, because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now has the upper hand in the administration in her struggle with Cheney”, Bush won’t attack Iran before November 4th. (Why half-hearted you ask? Well, while I do consider this good news, it IS the Bush(whacked) Administration so I’m still taking it with a grain of salt and will believe it when I see it…)

Heckle: to McCain surrogates and their continued inability to grasp the truth. While trying to defend Palin’s (in)experience earlier this week, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt repeated the false talking point that Alaska supplies 20% of U.S. oil, Problem is, Alaska only produces about 14.3% of our oil… add to that the fact that the Ms. Palin herself recently said that Alaska produces 20% of our “energy,” when it reality (a concept hard to grasp for republicans) it produces 3.5%... (Seems to me the governor of Alaska would know that kind of thing… so either’s she’s lying – big shock I know – or she’s clueless. Perhaps her pairing with McCain makes sense after all)

Applaud: to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (chuckle), who said earlier this week that Vice President Cheney misled him into supporting the invasion of Iraq by saying that Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon… obviously, no such intelligence existed. (Rather late to the party Mr. Armey, but welcome anyway)

Heckle: to not knowing who you’re taking money from… the location of a Bush fundraiser in Florida was changed earlier this week after it was realized that the original host is currently under IRS investigation… oops.

Applaud: to political stumps gone bad… with hilarious (for us anyway) consequences. McCain made a surprise stop at an Oakland County (MI) GM plant earlier this week. Touring the plant with wife Stepford Cindy, McCain shook hands with plant workers. All was going well until he met a group of workers that had shown up to work with Obama t-shirts and buttons. (Wow, looks as though the McCain campaign’s vetting of meet and greets is as solid as their vetting of VP picks)

Heckle: to sad endings. Federal officials told AP this week that no charges will be filed against former republican Rep. Mark Foley for sending sexually explicit messages to underage Congressional pages…

Applaud: to Bill “Do you want to see my microphone” O’Reilly for saying what I, and certainly many others, have been saying for a while… the current “economic chaos” on Wall Street marks the “end of President Bush’s legacy” and ““He’s done. He’s through. … He will now go down in history…as an ineffectual leader. And I’ll tell you the reason why, it’s poor leadership on his part. The people that he picked to run certain things have been disastrous. And no leadership and now Americans are getting hurt.” (Now… this is the second time in a span of two weeks that I’ve applauded O’Reilly in “The Rewind.” If it happens again, I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for flying pigs. That and I’ll immediately start drinking)

Heckle: to more unnecessary needling. Speaking about relations between Russia and the US, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Russia's policies are putting it on a path to isolation and irrelevance… (that’s good Ms. Rice, stir up the pot so the water gets REALLY hot before leaving your office… that’s some might fine diplomacy there)

Applaud: to Sen. Obama for this McCain-pwning; “Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he's president that he'll take on, and I quote, ‘the old boys network in Washington.’ […] Now I'm not making this up. This is somebody who's been in Congress for twenty-six years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. […] And now he tells us that he's the one who's gonna' to take on the old boys network. The old boys network? In the McCain campaign that's called a staff meeting. Come, on!” Score!

Heckle: to Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) for acting like a republican Congressman. We have enough of those Mr. Rangel, could you perhaps STOP acting like a schmuck?

Applaud: to, I suppose, better late than never stifling. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said earlier this week that he pledges to “squelch the ‘ethics storm’” exposed by investigators last week that found agency workers not only rigged bids and inappropriately accepted gifts, but had sex with energy company officials that did business with the government. (I’ll believe it when I see it. Two of those responsible have already retired unscathed… are we really to believe that they will do anything about it now? As I said; I’ll believe it when I see it…)

Heckle: to calling someone out for something you yourself did 2 short years ago. Perennial conservative windbag {spins wheel o’ conservatives}… Ann Coulter Rush Limbaugh Michelle Malkin took aim at Gawker.com for publishing emails of Sarah Palin that showed the phone number of Bristol Palin and husband Todd’s email address. Malkin called Gawker a “cesspool blog” and “lowlifes” and “by-any-means-necessary lunatics.” Well, Ms. Malkin apparently forgets that back in 2006 she did the same damn thing, posting the phone numbers of a group of college kids that were planning to protest Ann Coulter. (I don’t condone splashing people’s personal information onto the Internet, but when you complain about someone doing something, you should damn well know if you’ve ever committed the same thing… otherwise you look like a hack…)

Applaud: to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). They filed a class-action lawsuit this past week against Bush administration officials. The lawsuit aims to halt what it (and anyone that has use of their own brain) describes as illegal surveillance of Americans’ telephone and Internet traffic. (good lawsuit and all, but considering how this administration operates, I doubt it will actually do anything… do you?)

Heckle: to old fashioned censorship. Earlier this week on a local report on KTRK-TV in Houston, TX, reporter Wayne Dolcefino said that the media has been blocked from covering Hurricane Ike’s devastation. During a presser with Gov. Rick Perry, Dolcefino pressed on why the media isn’t allowed to fly over parts of Galveston Island, noting that media access was far better in Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Perry tried to brush off Dolcefino’s concerns, but eventually passed blame the buck to federal officials, more specifically FEMA. (Wow, would have ever thought that FEMA would try to cover their tracks?)

Applaud: to former republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. Ron Paul explained earlier this week why Ron Paul refused McCain campaign staffer Phil Gramm’s pleas to endorse McCain. Besides saying that Ron Paul disagrees with McCain “on all the major issues,” especially foreign policy, Ron Paul then said; “I mean I could never support somebody who thinks that it’s funny to say ‘bomb bomb bomb Iran.’ […] That, to me, is not somebody that I could endorse ever.” (Ron Paul)

And now it’s time for our conservative Tool of the Week.

Okay it was a tough call this week, between McCain reiterating his nonsense about the economy being 'fundamentally' strong, or the Palin refusal to comply with a subpoena, or McCain's top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, claiming McCain helped bring about the Blackberry… but we did it.

It’s “President” Bush.

Despite not answering questions from the media in over seven weeks (see my post about that HERE), when the shit was hitting the fan on Wall Street at the start of this past week, he was nowhere to be seen. When he did show, he spoke for a scant two minutes… and in the process managed to not only piss off Democrats, but his own party as well (but in all honesty who cares about that).

Taking a mere two minutes to talk about the largest economic crash since the Great Depression shows just how little Bush cares about this job now. This is a situation that merits a primetime Oval Office chat… not a 2-minute Rose Garden presser. It’s time like these that allow a president with Nixonian-like approval numbers and a fading-faster-than-Palin legacy to re-establish himself in the eyes of the electorate.

Instead, he comes out… throws money at the problem…doesn’t assure the people… and disappears from sight again. And that’s why he’s our Tool… of the week.