Nancy Pelosi, who today won reelection to the position of Speaker of the House (a real shocker, that), took time from slobbering over The One to reach across the aisle and punch House Republicans in their collective stindeens. Ms. Pelosi, at a time when the approval rating of the Congress is rivaled only by that of, well, Charles Manson, vowed to change the House Rules in order to effectively render House Republicans about as influential as the House hat rack.

Madam Speaker proposes to undo reforms that were put in place by Republicans following their landslide victory in 1994.

[The] reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation.

Memo to Madam Speaker: May I remind you that you are not Queen Nancy and that more than 58 million of us did not vote for the Democrat party in 2008, and we are not amused? In fact, we are tempted to urge our representatives to vote “present” on all proposed legislation for the next two years, so that you won’t be able to blame the impending national mess on Republicans (much as you had the stones to blame the current financial crisis on George Bush, rather than you pals Barney and Chris). We can only hope that there will be something left of the country to save in two years.

Memo to John McCain: See what “reaching across the aisle” gets you?