George W. Bush - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 17 - Despite only having two syllables in his last name, Prime Minister Aznar of Spain was still treated to the ignominy of a mangled Bush pronunciation last week as George began his European vacation. After attempting to chat with Prime Minister "Anzar" in mangled Spanish, Bush put an end to the lie that he can actually speak the language and resorted to English (another language which he admittedly has trouble with). To be honest, George was probably glad to get out of Spain, where he'd been greeted by thousands of protesters, and move on to visit Belgium and Sweden. Where he was greeted by... thousands of protesters. Ha ha! Later, George met with Vladimir Putin and assured him that "the Cold War is over," (um, well spotted). But it's not just Europe that Bush is concerned about, oh no. Along the way, he also insisted that "We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." Fortunately, the expectations for this trip were so painfully low that George could have vomited on a world leader at an official luncheon and it still would have been an unmitigated success. That is, a success according to the conservative talking heads back in the good old U.S. of A. And if you don't believe them, well hell, you might as well just move to Europe anyway, ya commie!

George W. Bush - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 17 - Is there no end to this administration's dizzying spin? When Bush was Governor of Texas, he opposed legislation which would bar executions of the mentally retarded, a position he maintained throughout his Presidential campaign. Odd then, that he made a statement last week announcing that, "We should never execute anybody who is mentally retarded." Here to explain this is White House spokesperson Clare Buchan: "The President's remarks did not reflect a change in his views... this is not a change of policy." But... but... it's the complete opposite of what he said before! How can this be?! Well whatever is going on here, rest assured that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that Bush was about to embark on his European tour, and he was absolutely NOT trying to deflect intense criticism of his approach to the death penalty. Because that would just be shamelessly transparent groveling. And George W. Bush doesn't do that.

George W. Bush - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 17 - For those of you who aren't convinced by the argument that George W. Bush does NOT engage in shamelessly transparent groveling, here he his not transparently groveling to Hispanic voters. Last week Bush announced that the Caribbean island of Vieques will cease to be used as a great big target for great big Navy bombs sometime within the next two years (but probably just before the Presidential campaign starts). Funnily enough, Vieques residents are holding a referendum in November to decide whether or not they want to continue their role as U.S. Navy cannon fodder, and are unsurprisingly expected to almost unanimously vote, "um, thanks but no thanks." So if you think about it, it's mighty big of our non-groveling President to decide that, "Hey, no matter what the good people of Vieques decide, bearing in mind of course that there's absolutely no way to be sure at this point which way they will vote, I'm going to do the honorable thing and stop bombing them anyway. Oh, and if you're Hispanic, don't forget to cast a vote for GEORGE W. BUSH in 2004 (wink)."

George W. Bush - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 17 - And so it continues. Desperately attempting to keep at least one of his campaign promises, GW was just uniting the hell out of everybody last week. After previous successes (uniting Jim Jeffords out of the Republican Party, uniting Europe in their hatred for all things American) George decided that he was on a roll and it was time to unite the Florida GOP. And now they too all agree - he's a complete boob. Bush took a trip to the Everglades National Park recently, but whoops! He forgot to include some important Florida GOPers, prompting Republican strategist Ed Rollins to remark last week, "That was absolutely stupid... This president ought to basically know every Floridian Republican by first name over the next two to three years." Come on, Ed - this is George W. Bush we're talking about here. After extensive briefing the guy can't even remember the name of the Prime Minister of Spain!

Karl Rove - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 3 - Karl Rove came under fire last week after it was revealed that he met with Intel executives at the White House back in March - while still holding up to $250,000 in Intel stock. Hmmm. Of course, Rove didn't know that the executives were going to bring up the proposed merger of one of their major suppliers and a Dutch firm (coincidentally, the Bush administration approved the merger in May). So the question remains - what did Rove think that the meeting was going to be about? Was he just after a 2Ghz Pentium 4? Perhaps he was hoping to meet the Blue Man Group. In a letter to Karl Rove, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote, "I am writing not to make accusations about your conduct but to seek more information about your involvement in policy matters that potentially involved your holdings, including those stocks that you may have recently sold." Waxman has also been putting pressure on Dan "Watermelon" Burton to investigate the matter, but the subpoena-crazy Burton has remained strangely silent so far. Presumably this passes his patented "smell test" (see Idiots Week 8). Perhaps someone should tell him that the Committee on Government Reform is allowed to investigate... gulp... Republicans!

Michael Skupkin - NEW! Weeks on chart: 1 - We learned last week that the Michigan GOP is so desperate to defeat U.S. Senator Carl Levin that they're considering running ex-gameshow contestant and celebrity pig-murderer Michel Skupkin as their candidate in 2002. For those of you who missed "Survivor 2," Skupkin is the man who became nationally famous for catching and slaughtering a "wild" boar with his bare hands, before painting his face with its blood. Still, Skupkin almost managed to win "Survivor 2" with a fabulous combination of lying, plotting, backstabbing and sabotage - so he should fit in nicely with the Republican Party.

Rudy Giuliani - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 4 - Last week, Giuliani's divorce lawyer, Raoul Felder, announced that the mayor is "nearly broke" with a mere $7,000 left in his bank account. This is quite amazing really, when you consider that not only does he have a salary of $195,000, he also lives rent-free in Gracie Mansion and rides around in a taxpayer-funded car. In a somewhat lame attempt to explain Rudy's obviously out-of-control spending, Felder could only come up with: "He has considerable expenses - children's schooling, credit cards, dining out..." Mind you, the cost of maintaining a mistress can't be that cheap these days, especially in New York City. Whew! There's clothes, jewelery, flowers, not to mention Viagra of course. No wonder Rudy's broke! Of course, this little announcement would have nothing to do with the fact that he's going through a divorce proceeding at the moment...

Ann Coulter - NEW! Weeks on chart: 1 - In a Yahoo News op/ed piece last week, Ms. Coulter came up with a very interesting theory. We'll bet you weren't aware that liberals were the root cause of every single problem in America today, were you? To be fair - you might have known that, if you listen to Rush. But anyway, here's Coulter's take on it: "It's hard to imagine now, but before the official government religion was liberalism - devoted to class warfare, ethnic hatred and intolerance - Americans were kind to one another." Ah yes, the good old days! When you could buy a cup of coffee for a nickel, see a movie for a dime, and blacks had to sit at the back of the bus. Hang on, we're not supposed to mention that, are we?

Bill O'Reilly - RETURN! Weeks on chart: 3 - Poor old Bill. Looks like he can dish it out but he just can't take it. Mr. No-Spin went on an almost tearful rant last week on "The O'Reilly Factor" about how the media just won't take his idol... er, I mean, George W. Bush, seriously. "Saturday Night Live, Leno and Letterman, some of the liberal columnists and a chorus of Hollywood hotshots have all had a blast portraying Mr. Bush as a court jester. The problem is, that's not true. The president may be unsure of himself in some situations and he may be inarticulate at times, but nearly every American experiences that," wailed the supposedly-impartial one. "Chalk up the personal attacks on the President as rank snobbery and unadulterated ideological hatred." Oh yes, of course. Personal attacks on George W. Bush are "rank snobbery and adulterated ideological hatred." But Bill Clinton deserved everything he got. "No Spin Zone" my ass.

William Crosby and Jeremy Clingman - NEW!/NEW! Weeks on chart: 1/1 - And finally, for all the Republicans who signed Crosby and Clingman's petitions requesting the recall of Senator John McCain - the joke's on you, suckers! In a rather pathetic attempt to try and get rid of McCain for "insufficient loyalty" to the GOP, the two Arizonans were trying to get 349,269 signatures of registered voters in order to force a recall election under the rules allowed in the Arizona Constitution. Too bad they didn't take the time to check their copy of the U.S. Constitution first, because they would have found that those rules don't apply to McCain, who, as a U.S. Senator is a federal government official. So we can assume that this matter won't be taken any further, because we all know how much Republicans love the U.S. Constitution. At least, that's what they keep telling us. See you next week!