The Weekly Rewind

TBWA is ‘not a rich man’ either... but I have a feeling my definition of rich is vastly different than John "I have 11 houses" McCain...

The Weekly Rewind starts… right now!

Applaud: to the fun that the McCain-Palin campaign is giving us this week. A failed attempt help guide a bailout plan… example after example of Palin’s ineptitude with Katie Couric… and so many flip-flops that I’ve lost count. Thank you McCain campaign for providing us with hours and hours of quality laughs…

Heckle: to McCain’s reasoning of Obama’s lead growing; “life isn't fair .” Well… alrighty then… way to be mature there John.

Applaud: to dwindling approval numbers. No, not “President” Bush, but Gov. Palin. Before McCain tapped her as his running mate she had an 82% approval rating in her state. Since then, it’s plunged to 68%...

Heckle: to contagious stupidity. First it was McCain saying, on the same day that two of Wall Street’s major banking institutions collapsed, that he “still” believes “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”… then it was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying the same damn thing. Now the honor of saying the dumbest thing in politics belongs to Rep. Steve King (r-IA), who told right-wing radio host that he believes, as McCain does, that the fundamentals of the economy were strong… (give me a break… when will these people take off the blinders and see what the hell is happening to this country???)

Applaud: to Attorney General Michael Mukasey for appointing a special prosecutor, Nora Dannehy, to look into AttorneyGate. The prosecutor’s primary goal will be to determine whether the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed in any of the nine firings. (Hmmm… maybe she can then investigate whether or not Bush received a hummer in the Oval Office so we can get HIM impeached… I’m just sayin’…

Heckle: to the fact our national debt hit $10 trillion plus this past week. (What else can be said? After eight-years of sloppy politics, this is where we are…1/20/2009 can NOT come soon enough)

Applaud: to her ridiculously called maverick ways being shown as un-mavericky. Since she was unveiled as McCain’s running mate, Palin has tried to pass herself off as a reformer during her years as the mayor of Wasilla. Problem is, according to anyone you ask in Wasilla, she and her friends received special benefits that are typical of small-town politics-as-usual. One example, according to AP, is when Palin needed to sell her house. Rather than have to go through the usual channels, she was able to get the city to sign off on a special zoning exemption. So the next time someone decides to throw down on politics and says that Palin is ‘just like us’ and is a ‘maverick’ and ‘reformer’, point them to this story… then go to google, type in Palin, lies, reformer and watch the google-result goodness.

Heckle: to the fact things are bad enough that 33% of Americans believing the US economy is already in a depression. 10 month ago, a scant 12% believed that... way to go Bush(whacked) Administration!

Applaud: to Charles Krauthammer for saying; “McCain is losing and we all know it. I don't like Obama and I don't like his friends. But he has the intellect and temperament to be President. And he probably will be.” (damning your party’s candidate while delivering praise – somewhat backhanded – to his opponent has GOT TO HURT…)

Heckle: to flip-flopping. Last week McCain rebuked Obama because he publicly said that he supports striking terrorist targets inside Pakistan if the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to do so themselves… a day later, due to Gov. Palin’s error, McCain had to defend her for endorsing the same policy a day later, saying; “I don’t think most Americans think that that’s a definitive policy statement.”

Applaud: to the Alaskan judge that “refused to block” the state investigation into whether Palin abused her power when she fired her public safety commissioner this past summer. The judge also denied the Alaska AG’s challenge of legislative subpoenas… looks as though TrooperGate may NOT go quietly into that good night after all…

Heckle: to more republican stupidity… this time from Corinne Weber, a gop county chairwoman in upstate New York. She resigned this past week because of a chain-email she sent to more than two dozen republicans on Friday night that made veiled references to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama while suggesting he was the Antichrist… (Dumb. Ass)

Applaud: to more examples of Palin inanity. Speaking to radio host Hugh Hewitt, Palin said; “I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago.” Well, University of Idaho journalism professor Abubakar Alhassan told Conde Nast Porfolio that he didn’t see any ethical violations in the questions asked by Gibson nor Couric, saying; “I think the media that's had the opportunity to interview her was just giving her that opportunity to explain to people the controversies out there she hasn't spoken about. […] I don't think they asked any 'gotcha' questions. I don't think a question about which it turns out she doesn't know much is a 'gotcha' question.” Soooooo.. in other words the line of questioning wasn’t unethical, it was hard, and we all know – or at the least are beginning to learn – that Palin doesn’t do hard…

Heckle: to Rep. Michele Bachmann (r-MN). After the House failed to pass the proposed bipartisan bailout package earlier this week, House republican leadership blamed a pre-vote speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that they claimed was “partisan.” Rather than be looked upon as the whining babies they are, the gop backed off of that message. At the time, Bachmann said “We are not babies who suck our thumbs. We have very principled reasons for voting no.” But she reversed course again days later when she appeared on CNN’s Larry King, where she claimed that Pelosi gave a “bitter” speech aimed at “attacking the bailout.” (Wow… how Ms. Bachmann is able to walk upright is beyond me as her stupidity is Bush-like. Pelosi’s speech, while filled with some unnecessary partisanship, did not attack the bailout at all. Once again it’s a situation where Bachmann said something stupid – of which she has a long history – and tried to repair it only to say something equally stupid)

Applaud: to Elizabeth Edwards. Earlier this week at a roundtable discussion in Carboro, NC, Edwards called “truly dangerous to our health-care system.” Nicely said Ms. Edwards, thank you.

Heckle: to the news that Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is seeking a 10th term in the U.S. House this Saturday, despite the fact he was indicted last year on multiple federal corruption and bribery charges and is preparing to stand trial in December… ditto heckle to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) for doing the same damn thing. Come on now, even Tom DeLay knew not to run for re-election with only the possibility that he was going to get tried…

Applaud: to more backtracking. We all know the McCain campaign had to backtrack after Palin agreed with something supported by Obama-Biden and NOT McCain-Palin, but did you know that the McCain campaign is continually calling the media coverage of Palin as sexist? Well, Couric asked Palin if she thought the coverage of her has been sexist and Palin responded; “No, I don't.” That loud noise you heard immediately after was the McCain campaign simultaneously face-palming themselves…

Heckle: to perpetual nut-job Cynthia McKinney. The former Rep and current Green Party presidential candidate said earlier this week that the military killed 5,000 prisoners after Hurricane Katrina... as always, she didn’t offer up any actual evidence, just conjecture.

Applaud: to CNN for showing Palin wrong… again. we all know that Palin and the campaign’s surrogates have been using the “lives in Alaska, can see Russia, so she knows foreign policy” crap since she was rolled out as VP. Well, apparently – once again – Palin is lying. There’s only one place in Alaska where someone can see Russia with the naked eye. That’s Little Diomede Island, Alaska., a village where Palin has NEVER visited (no modern Alaskan governor has)… furthermore, none of them have never even heard of Sarah Palin… ouch, so much for that theory.
Heckle: to unethical moments in journalism. A reporter for Fox “News” was in a Pennsylvania diner earlier this week when he polled the crowd and asked who they were voting for… everyone in the diner, everyone, voted for Obama. When the “reporter” was set to go back to the studio, he said that the vote was “a split.” (Dumb. Ass. I not only blame the field reporter – he said it – but the anchor as well since he didn’t even see fit to correct him. This kind of blatant partisanship is ridiculous)

Applaud:&Heckle: to the Senate for voting last Saturday to give $25 billion in loan guarantees to the U.S. auto industry. The money is akin to as subsidy for such products as hybrid vehicles and plug-in electric cars and is the largest federal aid package ever offered to that particular industry. (Applaud for helping. Heckle for helping business but not people…)

Our conservative tool of the week goes to perpetual wanker Joe Lieberman. Thursday night he had THIS to say about Palin’s debate performance; “She hit it out of the ballpark. She proved that she is ready to be John McCain's Vice President. She was strong, she was competent, she was informed, she was very genuine. She was humorous.” Not sure what he was watching or what he was smoking, but earlier in the week he told Fox “News” that the downturn in McCain’s presidential campaign is “because of the economy.” Lieberman then went on to say that he hopes the House passes the bailout legislation because it will not only be “good for our country” but “it will be good for John McCain too.” And isn’t that what we’re all fighting for? Things that are good for John McCain? And because of this complete cluelessness, Lieberman wins this week’s Tool…of the week.