• The week started off with a double shot of intelligence stories to get us all hot and bothered. Did we say hot? We meant super-hot.

• Sometimes they pop and sometimes they sizzle.

• When nothing’s really happening, it’s easy to get bored. Luckily, Katherine Harris makes such a lovely distraction.

• If it gets really slow, then it’s time to make your own fun. First step: think long and hard about who would win a knock-down, drag-out scratch-battle between two crazy and energized congressional furies. It turns out, no one had to think that hard after all — it was a landslide.

• Next in the ring, House firebrand and chatterbox Sheila Jackson-Lee squared off against “Sergeant Homemade Sweater” herself, Virginia Foxx. This one had a closer finish, but was still a straight beat down.

• This is getting pretty exciting, and now it’s time for two of the pre-tournament ranking favorites: Cynthia “I Train In The Off-Season” McKinney and Nancy “Don’t Make Me Give You The Crazy-Eye” Pelosi. It was neck and neck for a while there, but Nancy reached back to her street roots, and clawed out a victory.
  
• We’re all about equal opportunity, especially in the eye-gouging, arm-biting world of congressional catfights. Enter: the men. The polls stay open until Monday, so keep your clicking fingers warm.

• Nothing else actually happened, so we set up some side-bets: beauty this time, instead of destruction, and the name of the rose.

• No chance of any real fun this weekend, what with the rain and all the police around, so just stay in and consider the possibilities in the Wonkette Fantasy League.

The polls have closed, and it’s official: Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) has trounced Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) in the opening round of Congressional Catfight. Harris moves into the next round of competition, where she’ll face the winner of Congressional Catfight: Barney Frank vs. David Dreier.

The Emerson-Harris match-up wasn’t even close. Emerson was lucky to break 20 percent; for most of the competition, she was polling under that figure. Here’s the final tally:

Watch out, Bill Nelson — Katy’s coming for you next!

Check back again soon, when we’ll open the polls for our next Congressional catfight.

Earlier: Congressional Catfight: Katherine Harris vs. Jo Ann Emerson

Earlier today, we announced Congressional Catfight, our contest to find the biggest beeatch in the House. (Apologies for the mixed animal metaphors.)

We kicked off the competition with a battle between Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) and Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL). Now, we bring you the full roster of worthy competitors:

Top row, left to right: Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO); Katherine Harris (R-FL); Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX); Virginia Foxx (R-NC)

Bottom row, left to right: Cynthia McKinney (D-GA); Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Barney Frank (D-MA); David Dreier (R-CA)

By the way, the polls are still open in the Emerson v. Harris match-up. So if you haven’t voted yet, click here, and make your voice heard.

For those of you who are really excited about this competition, the full tournament ladder, with brackets, appears after the jump.

Here it is:

The fun is just getting started!

Earlier: Congressional Catfight: Katherine Harris vs. Jo Ann Emerson

Welcome to Congressional Catfight. Through several highly scientific Wonkette reader polls, we will determine who is the most insane, badass, bitchiest congresswoman out there. We’ve drawn up a list of eight competitors, who will be pitted against each other in a series of no-holds-barred catfights. The contest will be conducted in tournament style, with brackets (like Consumerist’s Worst Company in America competition, or Valleywag’s Girls of Google hotties contest).

We’ll have the full tourney ladder for you, featuring all eight competitors, later today. [Update: Here it is.]

For now, let’s plunge straight into the action. Today’s match-up pits Jo Ann Emerson (above left), of “I think you’re an **** ” fame, against Katherine Harris (above right), of — well, of Katherine Harris fame. Here’s the poll:

Please vote, early and often. The results will be certified by Katherine Harris.

Thank you. We think you are **** s.

Earlier: Prior coverage of Jo Ann Emerson (scroll down)
Prior coverage of Katherine Harris (scroll down)

• The tasteful classic rock hits finally stopped playing, and when they did, Scotty was the one without the chair. We heard later that maybe he never even had a chance.

• We wouldn’t have called it WEDNESDAY MORNING MASSACRETTE just for Scotty. Turns out Turd Blossom has a new job too.

• Wonkette loves a power vacuum. Who, oh who, will not be answering Helen Thomas’s questions now? Qualifications required: 1. Republican 2. Has been on TV.

• It wasn’t all White House this week. In fact, once we heard about Kathrine Harris’s bus tour — not to mention her attempted seduction of a college journalist — we forgot all about the Massacrette.

• You have to respect a congresswoman who’s not afraid to call it like she sees it. We’ve even started emulating her, and so can you, unless you’re too big of an **** .

• Some people are always looking for signs that the apocalypse is upon us; if you’re one of them, you had a pretty blockbuster week.

• Some too-old-to-hack-it-anymore retired generals are calling for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, but Bush says he’s the “decider,” and his decision is: Rummy stays. The President doesn’t want anyone making fun of him anymore either. He’s smart really, just maybe more of “wikilectual,” than, you know, an intellect-ual.

• Loyal readers, you never cease to amaze us. We pose one simple question about some good old-fashioned congressional adultery, and you deluge us with emails filled with your hopes and dreams.

• Way to go, Washington Post! You totally kicked some Times ass, and all thanks to Robin Givhan, who heard the news while wearing an ivory crewneck sweater that was a perfect metaphor for the simple, yet complex task of writing about famous peoples’ clothes, which itself is a reflection of the world’s preoccupation with image as perception, and sometimes a red tie is just a red tie, and she really wants to thank the little people, and oh! thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, air kisses for everyone!

Every day we get, oh, 500 chain emails warning us that illegal immigrants are going to steal our jobs, abscond with our wives, and force us to eat salsa (salsa is a common thread in all of them — why is salsa so threatening? We like salsa!). Today, someone pointed us towards this charming website, which invites concerned xenophobes citizens to throw mail a “brick” to congress, as encouragement (of the mafioso variety, though maybe that’s just our film-saturated imagination talking) to build a wall (a literal one, it seems like). We know the line’s been used a million times, but even with all the bricks provided gratis, we think the type of people who populate the Capitol would probably need a couple day laborers of ambiguous legality to actually stack ‘em up.

Still, though, we are always in favor of mailing goofy **** to Congress. So while we think the cause is ridiculous, we got a “brick” and mailed it to our representative as soon as we could. And we already got our response!

Send A Brick
Earlier: We Love Jo Ann Emerson

Why we love this town: As soon as we grew bored with that crazy New Orleans mayoral candidate, Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo) stepped right in to steal back our affection (we’ll never stray again, Washington). Below, a letter she sent to a constituent regarding some boring thing that people who write letters to their representatives care about:
(Click to enlarge and then giggle for a half-hour)

“I am honored to serve as your Representative in the U.S. Congress. I think you’re an **** .”

That is the funniest thing we have seen all week. That is also how we are ending all of our emails from now on. And probably conversations in real life, too. We asked a friend with a bit of experience answering contituent mail his thoughts on the story:

My boss signs dozens of letters like this every month. But he actually pays attention. If something like that went in front of him to sign, several people would be fired. But then again, our database keeps a record of everything coming in and coming out. I don’t know what the hell they are using that they can’t “find” the microsoft word document that the letter was written in. Whoever wrote that has huge brass balls, I’d love to write something like that to a constituent.

He also reports that Pete King writes letters like this all the time (minus the dodgy language). Does someone want to write to him to find out? Thanks. We are honored to serve as your editors on Wonkette. We think you are **** s.

Update: An operative checked the initials on the left against his staffer database, and declared that the likely author is a Mr. Frank Miller, Legislative Assistant. Mr. Miller: We love your work.

Emerson puzzled how obscenity appeared in letter to constituent [AP via Kansascity.com]