Contrary to published reports, my last twelve months were not spent undercover with special ops forces in Iraq. Call me a coward, but I failed to see the value in trading my limbs for a bundle of ribbons and an endless string of appointments at the VA hospital. Nor was I toiling in the Ninth Ward rebuilding churches and elementary schools. My story is far less noble than that. And while I’m not at liberty to divulge my exact whereabouts, I can reveal that I was sequestered at a rehab clinic in Malibu. Which is not exactly a dead giveaway as the tiny seaside hamlet (100 sq. mi., 14,000 residents) harbors over two dozen facilities, including such Hollywood favorites as Passages, Promises, Harmony Place, Malibu Horizon, Cliffside Malibu, Sunset Malibu and Irv’s Junkie Grotto.

What goes on in rehab is supposed to stay there; a first-name-only policy among the glitterari, however, fails to provide much in the way of anonymity. Nonetheless, I don’t feel I’m betraying any confidentiality by sharing some of what I learned. One patient, let’s call him “Mel”, taught me how to stumble my way through a field sobriety test after running over a clutch of elderly Jews, while “Britney” and “Lindsay”, ever mindful of the paparazzi, cautioned me, just before a moonlight foray to score some coke, to re-shave my pussy before scaling the perimeter wall.

Admittedly, after a full year inside, I was as reluctant to leave said clinic as I was to enter it in the first place. For all the limitations like second-rate Frappucinos and starchy, Jackson Pollock-stained prison linens, rehab was a safe haven, devoid of triggers, enablers and ex-wives. The outside world seemed capricious if not downright pernicious and it was going to take a higher force to get me out the door. Yet it was not completing my twelve steps or accepting L. Ron Hubbard as my lord and savior that provided the necessary animus. What brought me back into society was the fact that Donald Trump could fire Rosie O’Donnell from “The View.” “Rosie’s a loser,” Trump sharply bristled, “and ‘The View’ will fail… Barbara [Walters] made a big mistake… Can you imagine the parents of [her girlfriend] when she said, ‘Mom, Dad, I just fell in love with a big fat pig named Rosie’?” The network took notice, duly kicking Rosie to the curb — and in the process showed me that the world once again made sense, that order can be restored.

Enter Whoopi Goldberg who in eight seconds had producers second-guessing their casting acumen when she defended Michael Vick’s dog fighting operation. “Dogs are sport… in the deep South,” she explained, “This is part of his cultural upbringing.” As commonplace, I suppose, as incest and hanging black folks from trees, yet no one’s clamoring to get those events included in the Beijing Olympics. And while the trail of dead wrestlers leading to Vince McMahon’s doorstep has yet to produce any arrests, Vick’s initial denials shows he knew his activities were nefarious and, more to the point, illegal. Because the Falcons’ quarterback was the last defendant to cop a plea, he has been suspended from the NFL and will soon be sentenced to jail. True justice would see Mr. Vick locked in a razor-wire pen with twenty rabid Pit Bulls and a syphilitic Rotweiller. Be that as it may, Vick’s attorney, by garnering for his client an outcome notably shy of the standard set by O.J. Simpson, might well expect a dearth of clientele. But that’s not the case as the litigator was only days ago hired by Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) to fend off allegations of giving blowjobs in airport restrooms.

We should have been tipped off that Larry was a habitué of spankings and leather masks when, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he referred to Bill Clinton as “a nasty, bad, naughty boy.” Taking no such risk, Craig’s lawyer, Billy Martin, went straight to the shopworn Republican Fuck-I-Got-Caught playbook and predictably and blamed the media, in this case the Idaho Statesman newspaper which spent months investigating whether Craig is in fact a turd burglar, for precipitating a “state of intense anxiety” under which the Senator “felt compelled to grasp the lifeline [read: 7” uncut, shaved cock dripping with pre-cum] offered to him by the police officer” and to plead guilty to a single disorderly conduct charge in an effort to prevent the sordid episode from becoming public. As such, argued Martin, Craig’s guilty plea was not “knowingly and understandingly made” and should therefore be withdrawn. Claiming a lawmaker is ignorant of laws — especially those prohibiting public sex — is a baffling strategy and renders the legislator into the form of a scoutmaster discovered in flagrante with a young charge. Whether he immediately withdraws from the boy’s rectum or keeps on pumping away is immaterial. Either way he is unfit for the job. The prosecutor, for one, seems to agree: “Mr. Craig was arrested and signed a guilty plea, and from our standpoint, this case is already over.” But if by some miracle Craig is allowed to withdraw his plea, don’t fret; the government will no doubt re-file the dropped gross misdemeanor interference with privacy charge, which alleges Craig ogled the bathroom stall occupied by an undercover police officer.

Ironically, it’s Republicans who have urged Craig to resign. While they clearly wish to avoid another Mark Foley storyline, his resignation would more importantly obviate the need for a protracted and graphic Senate ethics committee investigation. Which, if you’ve ever seen one, — you probably haven’t, the last came in 1995, when Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) was found to have made 18 unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances — is quite a circus. Perhaps that’s why fellow senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Ted Stevens (R-AK), despite their numerous peccadilloes and offenses, have avoided such official scrutiny.

Vitter, a self-proclaimed family-values Christian conservative, admitted to a “very serious sin” after his phone number appeared on the client list of D.C. escort service. Yet his constituents continue to support him. Jeanette Maier of New Orleans proclaimed: “Sen. Vitter is one of the nicest and most honorable men I’ve ever met.” And she should know, doubtless encountering lots of men in her capacity as the madam of a high-end brothel shut down by federal authorities in 2002. Stevens, whose home was recently raided by FBI and IRS agents, is under investigation for receiving favors from an oil-services contractor in return for securing a $70mm government contract. The contractor, having extensively remodeled Stevens’ home and co-invested with the senator in a racehorse, has already pled guilty to bribing elected officials.

I cannot foretell whether any of the three senators will end up behind bars or anywhere else for that matter, but I do know this: at least one slot has opened up in rehab.