Dear President Obama:

I apologize.

There, I said it, which is more than your predecessor did about all of the horrors he perpetrated upon his country.

But you can hardly blame me. After all, look at how ineffectual our party has been for the last eight years. Look at how frightened our party leaders in Congress have been, what with Harry Reid's whining that he doesn't have a majority so he can't try to fight, even if it's just for principle and to get opposition into the public record. Even after the Democrats won the midterm elections in 2006, he whined that he doesn't have a filibuster-proof majority. Never once did he consider that perhaps allowing the Republicans to filibuster everything might be a good idea in painting them as the party of obstruction. Look at what our party, led by YOUR chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, did to Howard Dean in 2004, because Rahmmy believed that John Kerry the war hero would be a better candidate. Do you think Howard Dean would have sat by and let a bunch of chickenhawks call him a wuss? I think not. And now even you have decided that with Dean's strategy having finally reached fruition in getting you to the White House, you've put a guy in charge of the DNC who seems to already be getting wobbly on the 50-state strategy.

And as for you, well, you're the one who had Joe Lieberman as your Senatorial mentor when you first went to Washington. It's all well and good to talk about reaching across the aisle. Tip O'Neill used to do it all the time. But today's Republicans aren't like the Republicans of the 1960's. They've purged as many moderates as they could out of the party, and now it's run by people like John Weepers Boehner and David Diapers Vitter and John Cornyn -- mean-spirited, hypocritical, greedy bastards who seem to truly believe that God has chosen them to purge the country of that pesky middle class. And likely as not, reaching across the aisle to them means you'll pull back a well-gnawed, bloody stump.

So with your history, you can't really blame me for looking at the gestures you made towards the Republicans -- throwing everyone who sweated blood to get you elected under the bus in favor of these assholes and guys like Rick Warren; leaving the Bushite Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense; talking about compromise with people for whom compromise is a dirty word. Oh, I know there were people at Daily Kos talking about how it was all a head fake, that you knew what you were doing and that you were simply reaching out to the Republicans, knowing full well what they would do, and then after giving them a chance to work with you, you would pummel them into the ground. But let's face it -- there are those over there who were as messianic about you as the Twenty-Seven Percenters STILL are about George W. Bush. And mindless worship is no more attractive or intellegent when it comes from our side.

But ever since noon on Tuesday, it seems that this is no longer just a funny lolphoto:

SOMEONE in our party has needed to do this for a long time:

President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

One White House official confirmed the comment but said he was simply trying to make a larger point about bipartisan efforts.

"There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats," the official said. "We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."

Closing Gitmo. Rescinding the global gag rule. A pay freeze on the highest paid staffers. Overturning Bush's sealing of presidential records. Reviewing detainee policy. White House staff ethics pledge. And now saying what has been obvious ever since the Clinton administration, that Republicans should stop taking their marching orders from a drug-addicted radio talk show host?

Somebody pinch me.