Show Post Date on Recent Post widget

This in sidebar.php or in a Widget created with Otto’s PHP Code widget:

<?php
$posts=get_posts('post_type=post&showposts=3');
if ($posts) {
foreach($posts as $post) {
setup_postdata($post);
?>
<p><?php the_time('m.d.y') ?> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
<?php }
}
?>

Thanks for this! I’m running into a problem though. I’m using Otto’s PHP code widget and pasted what you posted. It’s pulling the link for the page that I’m on…not my posts?

If I have both “Recent posts” and the PHP code widget added, then the PHP code pulls from my recent posts correctly. But I don’t need/want both of these widgets.

Any clue why it’s behaving like this?

This is better:

<?php
  $args=array(
    'showposts'=>3,
    'caller_get_posts'=>1
  );
 $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
  if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
    while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
      <p><small><?php the_time('m.d.y') ?></small> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
    <?php
    endwhile;
  }
?>

Thank you so much!!!