What a great weekend for all involved. Just a fine couple of break-out days, days to indulge in the early spring that this region belches up every year. They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but the transition from king of the jungle to perennial doormat happens more quickly in D.C. Nothing like a few lines of throwaway weather talk to kick off the WIR!

From the New York Times comes this killer little bit of commentary on the free-agency moves of the Washington Redskins, which snatched up Albert Haynesworth of the Titans and DeAngelo Hall as well---both for bi bucks. Anyhow, let the New York paper take it away:

Guaranteed money: Granted, the Washington Redskins’ defense got a lot better, but giving Albert Haynesworth $41 million guaranteed — hours after guaranteeing DeAngelo Hall $22.5 million — left almost everyone else in the N.F.L. agog.

OK, but I think there's going to be a little reverse mojo going on here. For years, the Skins would acquire free agents, and the moves never got them anywhere, going all the way back to Deion Sanders and Dan "Big Daddy" Wilkinson and Laveranues Coles and the like. Back then, people thought, wow, this team is gonna be something special. As we know, they specialized in mediocrity. But now that everyone is slamming them for these pay-scale busting acquisitions, I guarantee that Dan Snyder is going to look like a genius come this time next year.

Folks: I am sure I missed something here, but why on earth is Adrienne Washington writing about national stuff now (in this case, a tepid analysis of Obama's health care plans)? Wasn't she supposed to be a local kid?

And a note to the WashTimes Webmaster: When you put announcements up on the site, like this one about the hiring of an editorial page editor, make sure you get the dates right. This story, available on the site Sunday evening, said, "The Washington Times on Monday named Richard Miniter as editor of the editorial pages and vice president of opinion, the latest of a series of dramatic moves to boost the newspaper's global impact."

But it wasn't Monday yet. I know times flies, especially when you're boosting your global impact, but this is crazy.

A little self-promotion here.

As LL mentioned in this morning's Daily, the Washington Times' Timothy Warren reported this morning that Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had said at a voucher press conference, "If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating."

Moments ago, LL received an e-mail from a DeMint aide, who says, "The Washington Times completely misreported Senator DeMint's comments, leaving out the opening of his statement that he was told this by a DC parent. As the New York Post points out here, Senator DeMint was simply quoting from a mother who said those words to him this week, that she was concerned her child was likely to end up in a gang instead of graduating if forced out of the scholarship program."

Read More "Conservative Catfight Over DeMint Quote" »

What ho, D.C.! And, er, Happy Lent.  Here's what's new:

*The Hill: Obama speaks before congress; gets a big treatment from the Washington Post and a weird, semi-positive lede graf from the Washington Times.

*Crime: WUSA9 reports that D.C. Police are searching for Alice Raffner, a 56-year-old white female who is "5'2" tall, weighing approximately 140 pounds, with blue eyes and blonde hair."

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: “Obama Will Rebuild” Edition" »

OK, before getting into this huge news docket for the weekend, let me include a gratuitous slam on President's Day Weekend. It's a waste of taxpayer money, a disgrace in these lean times, a stupid holiday right in the middle of an ugly season, and it wreaks havoc on the Washington City Paper editorial deadlines. Enjoy Monday off, Rest of the World.

Big news coming out of Daytona. I mean, Kenseth is a monster.

Good feature on the front of Washington Post Metro today about an ages-old killing in Virginia, a confession, and the aftermath. I've been hearing some grumblings of late that the Metro people are having a tough time making it to A1. If so, this'd be Exhibit A in my case to the page-placement jury.

NYT has a great piece on an inquiry into corruption on part of U.S. officials in Iraq just after "Mission Accomplished." Something about big wads of money in pizza boxes and the like. Also, this guy Burris--perhaps the best approach was indeed to send him out into the rain.

WashTimes, with the unscoop that Obama administration says stimulus key to economic recovery.

Examiner's Nei-man needles Fenty for nominating two jogging buddies to posts.

Big story this weekend was the weather (and not the Pro Bowl)---it felt like wintertime in D.C. for the first time in weeks. January, according to reports, was colder than usual, and February started out likewise. Yet somehow and for some reason, as the temps tilted toward 60 degrees on Sunday, people didn't get the memo and could be found in large, bulky coats. What's up with that. I am going to suggest that there's a certain demographic out there that doesn't watch the news, pick up a newspaper, or check out the Internet--these folks just assume that since it's winter, it's cold. No other possible explanation for it.

On news fronts, it's basically the economic crisis, and many things that don't matter nearly as much. Let's stick to the latter here.

Comments from the heroic pilot of that Hudson River-landing plane.

Can't believe that in the year 2009, they're still playing the Pro Bowl.

Well, there's a multiagency investigation of the cancellation of the Veterans Presidential Inaugural Ball, so how did Dionne Warwick's bash skate free?

What happened to a 36-year-old with paranoid delusions in a city with a patchwork system of care for the mentally ill?

WashTimes has the skinny on the unpresidentialness of "doom" rhetoric.

WaPo on the rise of homelessness among schools population.

Hey, just how worried should we all be about this lead-in-the-water story, anyway? The Washington Post's David Brown has an answer (not too much, that is).

Saturday is a great day for longtime Post watchers. That's the day that the paper runs its Close to Home feature, deep in the front section. It's a spot where the region's 5 million-plus fact-checkers tee off on a really big target: their dominant daily newspaper. So often, the gripes and errors pointed out in this space are dead-on. Yet this past Saturday's edition featured a strain of anti-Post thought that simply has no basis in reality. I'll take a few excerpts from the offending letters:

Read More "Weekend in Review" »

I heard a commercial for the Washington Times this morning that had the narrator boasting that more power-brokers in this town get their news from that paper than anywhere else.

The radio spot ended with a tag line: "You can tell who's reading!"

I'd never heard it before, but I love it.

"You can tell who's reading!"

The Washington Times? Hell, yeah, you can tell!

And damn if that doesn't blow away, "If you don't get it, you don't get it!"

Hope you all had pleasant Thanksgivings, readers. Here are some tasty tidbits from today's news:

-Mumbai (India) is a disaster. Daniel Politi at Slate writes a smart synopsis.

-Ever been Rick-Rolled? (It's terrible--google it with caution). Andrew Sullivan has a way for you to enjoy the Rick without the Roll.

-The Washington Post has the latest on the Chevy Chase killings. (Insert deserved cynicism here over the efficiency with which the cops are solving the murders of two old, white, rich folk--while shrugging their shoulders over various shootings and deaths in the ghettos.)

-Writing in the Washington Times, Ziad Asali asserts post-election that "Racism, the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room, has shrunk and is now no bigger than a jackass." Whew, glad that's over with!

In which Erik gives props to—wait for it—the Washington Times for an artful Sunday spread and muses on the relevance of topless models in Autumn. Also, near-illegible type in GayLife: WTF?!

Beefcakes and more, below the jump.

Read More "Fuego/Frio: Four Trillion Reasons to Love the Washington Times" »