This Preposterous Week in Review

Bachmann, Rep. Michele

• heartening addition of to list of most vulnerable Republican incumbents

Blackburn, Rep. Marsha

• virtue of balanced budget legislation is overenthusiastically -- "We're not going to cry 'emergency' every time we have a Katrina" -- extolled by

Brown, Chris

• forgiveness for beating up Rihanna is publicly "axed" for by

Bush, George W.

• all the gory details of the end of a beautiful friendship between Dick Cheney and

• falling rates of teen pregnancies and STDs were sharply reversed during White House years of, so maybe obsessively preaching abstinence at the expense of educating kids about contraception wasn't such a hot idea

• 2006 embrace by was sidestepped by Bono, to the delight of then Senator Obama, who said, "Nice work with the hug dodge," a sentence that had probably never before been uttered in the history of humanity

Campbell, Rep. John

• asinine bill that would require a presidential candidate to provide a copy of his or her original birth certificate is proposed by

Castle, Rep. Mike

• town hall meeting held by is interrupted by lunatic shrieking, "I want my country back!"

Cavuto, Neil

• overweightness of Dr. Regina Benjamin -- "The President's pick for Surgeon General is fat" -- is deemed a discussion-worthy topic on Fox News by, and then a moron wearing a "No Chubbies" T-shirt comes on and says she's "obese" because she's "lazy" and makes "poor food choices"

Cheney, Liz

• increasing difficulty of in accepting that -- ha ha! -- father of is no longer in power and -- ha ha ha ha! -- Barack Obama is

Cronkite, Walter

• death of leads to CBS decision to stop using the voice of to introduce the CBS Evening News

• decision to stop using voice of to introduce the CBS Evening News is reversed because, according to a CBS spokesman, "His presence is always felt here ... nobody wants to let him go," which begs the question of why, in 1981, during the absolute prime of, Dan Rather was forced down America's throats as the twitchy replacement for

• replacement of by Jon Stewart as America's most trusted newscaster

• 2002 opinion about the Bush Doctrine -- "I think it is about as dangerous a foreign policy as a nation could adopt" -- was unfortunately kept to self by

Dobbs, Lou

• becoming by of a national laughingstock (and a humiliating embarrassment to CNN) -- thanks to the obsession of with the thoroughly debunked "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama was actually born in Kenya and is therefore an "illegal" president -- provokes Agnewesque attack by on "limp-minded, lily-livered lefties"

Foxx, Rep. Virginia

• giggle-inducing declaration -- "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you" -- is made by

Frago, Gary

• racist e-mails are forwarded by, but it's no big deal because "I'm not the only one that does it. I didn't originate them, they came to me and I just passed them on"

Gates, Henry Louis

• arrest of for breaking into own house while being black

• Obama says "the Cambridge police acted stupidly" by arresting, and when they voice their hurt feelings, he doesn't offer a knee-jerk apology like almost every politician does whenever anyone objects to almost anything, but instead says he's "surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home"