Wow, could the timing of the Mark Foley scandal be any more perfect? I mean, while the news media is falling over themselves to cover yet another Washington sex scandal, no one will notice that the Republicans’ Detainee Bill has gutted habeas corpus. This little bill sets the American legal system back, oh 800 years or so.

So while we know all about Foley’s attraction to little boys, we hear little about our Republic crumbling around us. Our Dear Leader now has the right to lock up anyone he so chooses, indefinitely, with absolutely no legal recourse available to the victim. Isn’t that a little scarier?

What happened to the America I once knew? How is it that the freedoms we used to enjoy – those earned through two hundred thirty years of standing up to injustice – can be so easily dismissed, with not so much as a whimper from the populace? How is it the country I was proud to represent when I wore the uniform is so easily defeated – from the inside? America has turned into the Cold War foes it once faced down. Freedom vanishes with a stroke of a pen.

Every one of the cowards in Congress who allowed this to happen deserves to be handed walking papers next month. And if the door hits them on the way out, all the better. Its well past time to get this country back on track.