Hello faithful readers. My apologies for the delay in bringing you the mind-blowing, heart-pounding, euphoric O-news you crave.  I had to fly to Milan for a photo shoot with a bunch of other supermodels, so it took me out of the news for a few days.  God, I am so hungry.  All they feed us are breath mints and cucumber water.

Chris K. has been doing outstanding coverage on the stimulus anyway, so I know you've been in good hands. (And watch for his video report from DC later today!)

I am back now and what a difference a week makes.  Seems like that embarrassing Week 2-slash-Week 3 is just a distant memory.  How fickle we (I) are (am).

O starts week 3-slash-4 off with bang.

It started with Town Halls Monday.  You saw the news and read the headlines so no need to regurgitate here. It was pretty major. And now we have a new 'Joe the Plumber'. Except she's homeless and actually not a fake.  And her story is so moving that a Republican gives her an apartment rent-free (sidebar: we are sooo post-race in this country that white Republicans are falling all over themselves to give black single moms free rent! Yeah Obama! Take that welfare reform!).  My first instinct normally would be to think something suspect of said Republican, but it seemed really sincere.

Blah to touchy feelings!  This ain't no Oprah. On to Tuesday!  Tuesday morning marked the President's first and arguably the best press conference ever.  Check it:  Obama actually answers questions. Bill Clinton was a good media manipulator but never as direct.  And, out of nearly an hour press conference, O speechifies for only eight minutes and takes questions for nearly 51 minutes. What?!  51 minutes of answering questions?  And you call the reporters by name?  Holy shit.  Mind Explosion.

We also see the stimulus pass (thanks Maine!) later Tuesday afternoon despite some really gnarly press the previous week. Thank god. I thought for sure this thing was doomed.  I was, ahem, wrong. Mind Explosion Number 2!  Hopefully Specter, Snowe and Collins switch parties because they are O-fucked within their party.  Although, nothing is more satisfying than watching the Republican party eat each other up - just like we Democrats did to ourselves in 2000 and again in 2004.  Turnabout is Mind Explosion Number 3.

Then we have a couple of days of keeping the pressure on Congress to reconcile the two plans and some great White House barbs to the naysayers.  My fave from David Axelrod: "The last thing that I think we are looking for at this juncture is advice on fiscal integrity or ethics from Karl Rove -- anyone who's read the newspapers for the last eight years would laugh at that." Rove got served, muthafucka.

Then, to round out a great week...Sen Judd Gregg withdraws from Commerce Secretary.  Good riddance!  Here are the 4 reasons why I think Gregg called it quits:

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