Letters submitted in support of Randy Cunningham paint a picture of a true American hero who deserves a break for the very human mistakes he made.

Sure, he stole money from U.S. taxpayers, cheated on his taxes, leveraged the lives of our men and women serving on foreign battlefields for profit, and brazenly attempted to cover it all up through forgery, intimidation and outright lies. And those are just the things to which he's admitted.

But now he's old and sick and really, really sorry. Really sorry, truly. And besides that, he's a victim -- driven to do the things he did by a society that demanded so much of him over his career.

A 10-year Club Fed sentence may serve as a deterrent to other high-ranking officials, but does this one man really deserve to suffer that indignity after all he's been through? Some would say 10 years isn't nearly enough.