Dear Robert.

Dear Robert,

I remember the first time I took notice of you.  It must have been back in 2008. You were on Fox doing battle with Sean Hannity. Hannity had just handed over his TV show to some wing-nut, who it turned out was a notorious anti-Semite. You just nailed that son-of-a-bitch Hannity.  I remember turning to Anne and saying, “Gibbs…I like this guy.”

That is what I tentatively hoped I was buying when I campaigned for President Obama, cheered in Grant Park the night we won, drove all the way to Wakarusa, Indiana to take on the Tea Party creeps when they greeted Obama during the health care debate: An administration that would fight the Right without apologies.

Then a few days ago you went all off on what you called the Professional Left. You acted like some kind of disgruntled Jet Blue attendant. You claimed that my brain must be drug-addled since I was not in awe of all that the current administration has accomplished .

Some have speculated that your comments were contrived. They suggested you may have been testing out some political triangulation. Sort of a Clintonian Sister Souljah thing. Others claim you were frustrated over the inability of progressives to see all that the administration has accomplished.

As for me, I’m not even sure what or who the Professional Left is. If someone is making money off of all this crap, I sure missed my check. And as for drugs. The only drugs I do these days are Lipitor and an occasional shot of Jameson’s 12 year-old Scotch. Very occasional.

Since your interview with The Hill, you caught some hell and now you claim you were inartful and that we all need to get along.

Okay. I’ll take that as an apology and make a two-point peace proposal.

One. Have your boss set a date specific for the removal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. And make it soon. No fifty thousand troops and God knows how many mercenary contractors getting to stay in Iraq while you declare mission accomplished.

Get them all out of both countries. Starting now.

Two. Have your boss fire Arne Duncan. End the attack on public schools and on teacher unions. End the practice of claiming you want to collaborate with teachers and then set up policies that de-professionalize and undermine our work. Stop all this racing. End this obsession with testing. Fund schools on the basis of equity and equality. Take school change out of the hands of hedge fund amateurs and Wall Street Gordon Gekkos and put it in the hands of teachers and parents.

I’m not claiming that agreement on these two points will end all disputes between political progressives and the administration. But you have to understand that the problem isn’t only that there are a few disagreements around the edges of things. It’s not poor babies didn’t get all they wanted out of health care or that they’re upset you have cut some deals with Olympia Snowe.

Sure, there are other big issues too. Handing the recovery over to the likes of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. But we can save that for our next negotiating session.

End the wars. Free our schools.

That would be a good start.

In the mean time, I’ll find that bottle of Jameson’s 12 year-old. I can pour us both a glass. My version of a beer summit.