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the zeitgeist checklist: What Washington is talking about.

Zeitgeist Checklist: Karl Rove, Come On DownWhat Washington is talking about this week.

By Christopher Beam
Posted Friday, March 23, 2007, at 7:43 PM ET

1. Last Week: 1 Weeks on List: 5 [SAME]

Let's Get Ready To Rrrrrumble!
Law. President Bush and Congress lay the foundations for a White House-Capitol Hill smackdown (think a 536-person Battle Royale, with wooden seats instead of folding chairs) over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. The Senate rejects Bush's offer to have aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers speak to lawmakers off the record. Instead, it approves the subpoenas necessary to get sworn testimony. Rove and Miers start practicing not recalling things. Bush dismisses Congress' wrangling as a partisan "show trial," while Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy chides Bush for "telling the Senate how to do our investigation." Amid the fracas, Bush reaffirms his commitment to Alberto Gonzales—just like he did right before Miers withdrew her Supreme Court nomination.

2. New This Week [UP ARROW]

It's Back
Health. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announce that her breast cancer has returned and is worse than before. Despite a grim prognosis, Elizabeth said the couple is "incredibly optimistic" and that the Edwards campaign will continue. The other candidates hastily scrub their speeches clean of all insensitive language, including references to "keeping abreast" of situations, "tit for tat" exchanges, and "Iraq." Meanwhile, the irony police wait for the outpouring of sympathy to pass before pointing out that Edwards made his fortune suing doctors.

3. Last Week: 6 Weeks on List: 39 [UP ARROW]

Let Them Eat Pork
Iraq. House Democrats gussy up their $122 billion war-funding bill (read: war-ending bill) by tossing in money for a pet project or two. Wait, make that $21 billion worth of pet projects. Georgia lawmakers are faced with a painful choice: support a 2008 pullout or sacrifice $75 million for peanut storage.

4. Last Week: 5 Weeks on List: 2 [UP ARROW]

District Dissed
Congress. House Republicans stall a bill that would give the District of Columbia a voting representative. Their method: attaching a provision that would loosen gun-control laws. Piss off D.C., then give it guns—smart move! Disenfranchised D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is astonished that the GOP is "playing games with voting rights." Apparently attaching absurd amendments is acceptable only when it comes to less serious issues, like war funding.

5. New This Week [UP ARROW]

The Truth, the Whole Truth, the Inconvenient Truth
Environment. Al Gore testifies to Congress about the dangers of climate change and warns of a "planetary emergency." Invoking the 300 Spartans who fought at Thermopylae, Gore calls upon "the 535" members of Congress to act, so that one day they might say they "defended civilization's gate." He leaves out the part about the Spartans dying gruesome deaths at the hands the Persians. In his rebuttal, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and displays a photograph of icicles to prove it: "Where is global warming when you really need it?" he says. There's this movie Inhofe should check out.

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Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
Illustrations by Vivian Selbo.
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