After more than a month of being detained by authorities, Sam LaHood will be allowed to leave Egypt's borders. We're guessing he's going to head straight home, to the old U.S. of A. On Wednesday, an Egyptian judge lifted a travel ban on LaHood -- you might recognize the name; Sam's dad is Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood -- and 27 others accused of "using illegally obtained funds to foment unrest in Egypt and incite protests against the nation's military rulers," to borrow phrasing from the Associated Press. Preventing the pro-democracy workers from leaving in January turned out to be a diplomatically messy situation for Egypt, and the United States even threatened to cut off foreign aid in retaliation for Egypt's behavior.

It would be wrong to call it a hostage situation, but as The Atlantic Wire's own Adam Martin noted in an earlier report about Sam LaHood (pictured above on the far left), it could actually be case of lobbying gone wrong. Not that lobbyists take money from self-serving interest groups to stop good things from happening or anything like that. Oh wait. Fortunately, Sam will be free from the grasp of lobbyists back here in the States. Right?

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Adam Clark Estes