Senators, staffers and even reporters do not take it lightly when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) makes an announcement like the one he made on Nov. 2.

“Everyone should be alerted to the fact that they better have their schedules somewhat loose for this coming weekend and, I repeat, Monday,” Reid said on the Senate floor, as groans reverberated through the Capitol complex.

Reid’s threats of destroying the weekend plans of hundreds of taxpaying citizens have picked up steam as Republicans have stepped up their attacks on Democrats for slow work on spending bills.

But don’t cancel those weekend plans just yet. With few surefire ways to force the Senate to do anything, majority leaders have always relied on threats of dashed holidays and ruined weekends to get Congress’s “cooling saucer” moving.

Reid is no different. He has warned his colleagues more than a dozen times in floor statements over the last 10 months that he might call votes during the weekend. But the actual number of Saturdays that senators were forced to work? A grand total of one. In fact, the Senate has held only 15 Saturday sessions in the last decade.

We like those odds.

The office of the White House has long dealt with unwelcome suggestions that Vice President Dick Cheney was the man behind the curtain of the Bush presidency. But a speech and question-and-answer session delivered by Cheney over the weekend got us thinking: Has Bush rubbed off on Cheney?

Cheney’s address, delivered to the World Affairs Council of Dallas-Fort Worth, seemed fairly standard until he was asked about vocal critic of the United States Hugo Chavez.

“My own personal view is that he does not represent the future of Latin America, and the people of Peru I think deserve better in their leadership. But that’s obviously a matter they’ve got to resolve for themselves,” Cheney said of the man who once referred to Bush as “the Devil.”

Indeed, Chavez does not represent the people of Peru — because he represents the people of Venezuela, where he is president.
Despite the error, which went uncorrected at the time, we have to appreciate the honesty of the White House press shop. Not only did they release the transcript with the gaffe intact, they placed an asterisk next to Cheney’s use of the word Peru, and noted Chavez’s actual home country at the bottom of the transcript. 

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced Monday that he supports the Writers Guild of America it its strike against Hollywood.
“I stand with the writers. The Guild’s demand is a test of whether corporate media corporations are going to give writers a fair share of the wealth their work creates or continue concentrating profits in the hands of their executives. I urge the producers to work with the writers so that everyone can get back to work,” Obama said in a statement.

We have to ask, though: Is this quid pro quo?

Obama’s announcement comes just a couple of days after television writers were very kind to Obama when he made a cameo appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” In a skit that called Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) a witch, Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) interchangeable, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) a kid, Obama got to cruise onstage, deliver a light jab to Clinton and declare, “Live, from New York, it’s Saturday night!”

Obama’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The Club for Growth gave out no free passes when on Monday it released its “RePORK Card” for Senate votes on home-state projects — not even for members still recovering from near-death experiences.

The press release noted that Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) had the distinction of being the only member who voted for zero percent of pork-busting amendments in 2007.

Then again, he did miss a third of those votes, as he fought to stage his return from a debilitating brain hemorrhage that still has him mostly confined to a wheelchair.

Asked whether the organization was nervous about highlighting Johnson as the worst score in the Senate, spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said the report card’s creators did discuss whether a special allowance should be made.

“Had he gotten zero percent because he missed all of the votes, we obviously wouldn’t have highlighted him,” Soloveichik said. “But he was there for 10 out of 15 votes, which was a significant chunk.”

But Johnson need not feel singled out. Soloveichik explained the longtime pork-buster Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did not get a shout-out from the organization for his 100 percent rating, since he only cast two votes.