Just so we're clear:

The leadership of the Democratic Party believes that when a sitting President of the United States commits perjury, openly admits to suborning perjury and obstructs justice, this does not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. And any suggestion otherwise is the practice of the politics of personal destruction.

The leadership of the Democratic Party further believes that air strikes ordered by a sitting President to attempt to deflect attention away from those crimes does not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, no matter how many innocent civilians those air strikes might kill.

On the other hand, a sitting President of the United States in wartime, who receives legal advice from government attorneys and consults with key members of the House and Senate to establish surveillance action against known agents of a group that weeks earlier had annihilated over 3,000 innocents on American soil, has committed an impeachable offense on its face and without question, and that this impeachable offense should be followed with a Senate conviction on the matter.

In the face of this bizarre world that the Democratic Party would like to construct, it is worthwhile asking whether this Republic would exist today if the sort of loyal opposition that currently sits in judgment on Capitol Hill had squatted there during the Civil War. The powers appropriated by President Lincoln back then make President Bush seem like a card—carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Those powers calimed by Lincoln — other than the obvious suspension of habeas corpus — are too numerous to mention here, but perhaps an enterprising Democrat staffer can walk across the street and check out a book or two at the Library of Congress and look them up. Betcha a dollar nobody in the administration will know a thing about the transaction, even with the Patriot Act still in force for the next 11 days.

The New York Times and its seemingly endless satellites are quick to trumpet words such as 'spying' and 'secret' and attach them to the President in an accusatory manner. The timing of the story last Friday about the NSA surveillance was obviously timed to counter the good news in the Iraqi elections and the Patriot Act debate. There is no question about that.

Yet the vociferous media questioning that the President receives in forums such as his press conference is never, ever replicated in the direction of the august Senators who seem quite willing to take their chances with the lives of their constituents, in order to make the hated executive look bad and cause another dip in his polls.

Would that Sen. Levin, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Boxer, Sen. Durbin, Sen. Byrd and the rest of this band of willfully obtuse obstructionists answer the following questions, preferably by a smug reporter with a condescending air and perfectly coiffed hair:

——Is the United States currently engaged in war against terrorism and  terrorists in foreign lands and within our midst?

——Is the President of the United States overstating the threat of al Qaeda's presence in the United States?

——Did you or did you not accuse the current administration of willfully ignoring warnings that an imminent attack by agents of al Qaeda within the United States was forthcoming?

——Can you document — in your own state or others — a consistent pattern of abuses of civil liberties against citizens not suspected of terrorist activities under the auspices of the Patriot Act as currently constructed?

——Is the President lying when he says that NSA surveillance was ordered and executed with Congressional consultation?

How many times must we listen to these alleged public servants criticize this administration for not eliminating the perpetrators of 9/11 before it happened, who yet at the same time obstruct any and all attempts to prevent just such an attack (or one that would make that dark day seem like a picnic) from again occurring? How many times must these Democrat hacks be reminded that the minute surveillance and action against terrorists is curtailed, that is the same minute those terrorists will swing into high gear to murder them and their families?

How many attacks by this new enemy — whether they occur here or anywhere in the world — must free peoples endure before Democrats in the Congress will take that threat seriously and support the prosecution of the war within the reasonable means the administration has requested and executed? 

If these Democrats in Congress can produce evidence that proves the administration has abused its expanded powers systematically to harass innocent American citizens under the guise of fighting terrorism, then bring on your invective, your accusations, your investigations and your calls for impeachment. Bring on the debate about the role of the executive during wartime. Bring on an examination of FDR's wartime actions on the home front. Bring on your own culpability in harming the effort to eliminate terrorists from our nation and from the world. Yes, Jay Rockefeller, this is directed squarely at you.

Otherwise, shut up and renew the law that, in reality, is the bare minimum the United States government must do to combat terrorists within our midst. Stop pretending that you care about the civil liberties of Americans. Just a few years ago you cared not a whit about who had to die to protect the disgraced executive who shared your party moniker. Stop playing fast and loose with the lives of innocent constituents against the real threat we now face. For once in your miserable political lives, do the right thing! The life you save may be your own.

Matt May is a freelance writer and can be reached at matthewtmay@yahoo.com; he is the proprietor of http://mattymay.blogspot.com