Dear Us Weekly editor-in-chief Janice Min, I realize I told you it was a massive screw-up for you to go so hard on Sarah Palin. And I realize I might have even done my part to fan the flames. But seriously, was it really necessary to tell David Carr she "out Obama'ed Obama with her speech" and "came on like a supermom who is not going to take a lot of guff from anyone"? And whose idea was it to offer five whole free issues to all your enraged Republican hate-mailers, only so said hate -mailers could turn around and betray you to the likes of demonspawn Michelle Malkin?? That sounds like something Jesus would do, Janice Min!Which is why I can't get mad at your hasty political backtracking. Something about that would be so "typical Democrat self-immolating," so "Nation of Whiners" of me. Instead I will leave you with this story: yesterday I attended a panel on income inequality at Barnes & Noble featuring my own personal Jesus, Wall Street Journal columnist Tom Frank and former Harper's editor-in-chief Lewis Lapham. Tom's new book The Wrecking Crew is a hysterically funny survey of the hysterically vast destruction Republicans and their unabashed contempt for government have unleashed upon the government. If we were more like them, we would have figured out a way to convincingly get voters to substitute out "America" for "government" in that last sentence, but no. We are just so relentlessly self-critical! I heard one spectator whine about how he would vote for Ralph Nader or Ron Paul before Obama. Asked another, a late arriving senior citizen, afterward: "But did they let the Democrats off the hook? The Democrats always let the Republicans start wars!" And while it was true, it was the sort of rhetorical question that was its own explanation. Which is to say, Janice Min, I see some dirt on your shoulder, could I brush it off for you?