The Secret Service is losing some of its luster lately. The division of the Treasury Department long tasked with protecting the president, vice-president and other important government officials, was glorified in movies like Clint Eastwood's "In the Line of Fire" and Nicholas Cage's "Guarding Tess."

Last week in Salt Lake City, one of the agents guarding V.P. Dick "Big Time" Cheney accidentally left a security plan in a retail store. Nearly two weeks ago, when the V.P. swung through California, stopping at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, some agents had a little much to drink, made some comments to a woman and got into a brawl outside a bar in Encinitas. The sheriff kept the story quiet for two weeks, but it looks like Cheney definitely got the second-team agents. If these guys are tasked with protecting the VP, then maybe he's expendable after all.

Read the story and then think about it. You're a law-enforcement officer and you're attacked outside a bar (if that's the way it happened). Why don't you identify yourself as a Secret Service agent? Why do you flee the scene? The way these agents acted makes it look as if they are the ones who started it.