A jubilant George Bush celebrated after US military aircraft killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “Woo-wee,” the newly energized President told the White House press corps. “Talk about ‘mission accomplished.’ Any other 
terrorists want to get their bloody faces plastered on the front of the morning newspapers? Bring ‘em on.”
Administration staffers confirmed that Bush, who two weeks ago had adopted a more restrained public persona, saying that he had “learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner,” was now back in “full bravado mode.” “No question he had been down, what with the constant bombings, killings, and declines in his popularity,” said one source. “It’s amazing how a quick assassination can really turn around your entire perspective.”
Meanwhile, stock markets this week had their worst performance in a year after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. economy was starting slow even as he said the Fed needed to step up efforts to keep inflation under control. Confused traders, unsure whether a recession was imminent, inflation was accelerating, or interest rates were climbing, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 11000. It was not the first time a Bernanke statement has roiled stock markets and he held a press conference to issue an apology. “Having been in academia since 1979, I’ve grown accustomed to being ignored,” Bernanke said. “Now people are actually listening to what I have to say. It’s going to take some getting used to. Oh, and by the way, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the dollar collapsed over the next three months and short-term interest rates climbed to 20%.”
In local news, Massachusetts Democrats gathered in Worcester last weekend to select nominees for the state’s constitutional offices. All of the candidates running -- including three for Governor and three for Lieutenant Governor -- got the 15 percent of the vote needed to make it on to the September primary ballot. “What a relief,” said Chairman Phil Johnston after the voting was over. “For a while there, we feared someone might get knocked off. Luckily -- as has been the case every year -- no candidates failed to make the cutoff, meaning that, once again, we somehow managed to snooker thousands of people into wasting a Saturday in June.”
Christy Mihos, who is running as an independent for Governor, on Thursday said he had selected Winchester Town Moderator John J.
Sullivan to be his running mate. Mihos said he had considered a number of candidates, including a dog catcher in Millis, the assistant manager of a CVS in Amherst, and a Fall River woman who once met him when she was pumping gas at one of his convenience stores on Cape Cod. “But Sullivan’s vast experience in Winchester – which I’m pretty sure is in Massachusetts – and the fact that he didn’t laugh in my face when I asked him to join my team, persuaded me he was the one,” Mihos said. Political analysts said the choice was inspired. “John Sullivan has extraordinary name recognition,” said one. “Well, not this particular John Sullivan, of course. But all of us probably know someone named John Sullivan. Voters are easily confused. Odds are, they’ll walk into the voting booth, think it’s the same guy as the one they know and give Mihos a vote.”
Thousands of students and families gathered at the end of the week for commencement ceremonies at area colleges and universities. At Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, presiding over his last commencement as the school’s president, warned that the University risks becoming complacent. “There is temptation to elevate comfort and consensus over progress and clear direction,” Summers said in his remarks to graduates. “Oh, yeah, whatever,” replied a spokesman for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
And finally, Bostonians celebrated the opening of the World Cup in Germany by flocking to Fenway Park for weekend games, intensely debating the future of pitcher Matt Clement, worrying about the Bruins’ hiring of Peter Chiarelli as the team’s new general manager and wondering about the merits of the Patriots picking Laurence Maroney and Chad Jackson in the NFL draft.