House Republicans are crying so hard over my "dirtbag" comment, you'd think they just found out they were forced to spend the Fourth of July quail-hunting with Dick Cheney.

So I want to take a minute to do something I don't do often enough: apologize. I am very sorry for calling those fat-cat plutocrat Republicans "dirtbags." Doing so was grossly unfair. To bags of dirt. After all, dirt is good. Things grow from the dirt. I myself raise tomatoes and corn and pumpkins, jalapenos and cucumbers and lettuce - all from the good earth.

No, it was too kind, too generous to call them dirtbags. Probably better to call them oilbags or toxic-waste-bags or chemical-pollutant-bags. So I'm sorry.

Still, even though I used such a comparatively flattering term, the Republican whine machine was in full whimper. Yesterday, before their alligator tears even dried from crying about me calling them out, they mobilized their favorite shadowy attack squad and Karl Rove-backed Freedom's Watch to come after Democrats launching vicious attacks against 16 Democrats starting today - please help us hit back twice as hard with our own ads.