Yum problem -r

[Bob Goodwin <bobgoodwin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Suddenly a problem with yum and yumex. 
It appears that when I invoke either I get an error message such as:

yum update yum
Loading "skip-broken" plugin
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Options Error: Error parsing '3\t#2008.03.26': invalid integer value

I tried rm rpm /var/lib/rpm__db*  which helped in the past but to no 
avail today.

Any suggestions welcome.

Bob Goodwin