REP. SPENCER BACHUS (from Alabama, and you can guess which party) thinks Bill Maher should be fired for making fun of the Army's problems meeting its recruitment goals. According to Bachus, Maher committed treason when he said, "More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club. We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies.''

``I think it borders on treason,'' Bachus said. ``In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country.''

I don't know how you all feel, but it seems to me this political correctness stuff has gotten out of hand. A man who makes his living as a stand-up comic can't even make a joke about the military now without setting off the "treason" radars of the wingnut right? These people take themselves entirely too seriously. Look, if you're going to ban every comment that some group might find offensive, no one will be able to say anything anymore. Lighten up, guys. Get a sense of humor.

Besides, if "undermining the national security of our country" is treasonous, then Pres. Bush and his entire cabinet should be first on line to lose their jobs. The invasion of Iraq, which was based on a foundation of lies and deception, has had the predicted disastrous results, and has profoundly and very seriously undermined U.S. national security. The torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib and the horrifying atrocities that have been committed by OUR military at Guantanamo Bay and at Bagram Air Force Base have put the safety and very lives of American soldiers at risk and have damaged, possibly for the foreseeable future, America's reputation in the world. The C.I.A.'s "extraordinary renditions" program, which kidnaps Arabs and Muslims in other countries and flies them in total secrecy to the world's most brutal dictatorships so that they can be tortured by foreigners and Bush can have the deniability advantages, has turned America into Saddam Hussein's successor. And we all know how much Saddam Hussein was hated by his people. If being hated by others makes you less safe, then Americans are thousands of times less safe than we were on 9/10/01.

Stacked against all of this, a throwaway comment about the military having plucked all the low-lying fruit isn't even on the radar screen of dangers to national security.