WORRIED?

So, you're worried about bin Laden? Al Qaeda? Scared of them are you? Lying awake nights wondering when they're going to strike next? Listen, compared to Exxon or WalMart or Halliburton, Al Qaeda's a third-rate crime syndicate. Strictly small time. Osama's a penny- ante war lord hold up in a cave. I'd stack the gang of thugs Dick Cheney's gathered around him in the West Wing against bin Laden's tin-pot band of zealots any day. Yes sir, my money's on Shotgun Dick.

The ones who pose the greatest threat to our security and our freedom are not in Afghanistan. By no means are they in Baghdad or Haditha. Our real enemies are right here among us. They're in the White House. They're occupying the seats of Congress. Right now, they're brokering deals to strip us of our most fundamental rights. They're fixing up the law so they can spy on us at will. We're no longer safe in our homes from unreasonable search and seizure. People can be detained indefinitely without due process. They can be tortured. Now, our Congress has colluded with the President to throw out the rule of habeas corpus, the right of the accused to have his day in court, to confront his accusers. This is the very heart and soul of our democracy, the centerpiece of jurisprudence of free countries going back to the Magna Carta.

All bin Laden could do was knock down a couple of our buildings. But no doubt, he is watching events unfold here with keen interest, and perhaps no small amount of amazement, as we do to ourselves what he could only dream of doing; for not even he nor his band of criminals could have accomplished in under eight years the toppling of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

Nope. We did that ourselves.