In December 2016 the Huffington Post published a column by Dmitri Mehlhorn with this intriguing title: "How Republican Patriots Saved America During Watergate."

Mehlhorn credits Howard Baker, Eliot Richardson, and other influential Republicans for putting country above party and exposing Nixon's malfeasance.

Now (cliché alert!) the shoe is on the other foot, with evidence mounting daily that the former president's DOJ and FBI, almost certainly with Obama's blessing, colluded to protect Hillary before the election and tamper with Trump before and after his historic victory.

No, the story hasn't played out yet, but as with Watergate, enough is in public view for patriotic Democrats to step up, put country above party, and demand the appointment of a special counsel to determine if federal agencies were weaponized to support and defend one presidential candidate while attempting to delegitimize the other.

As far as I can tell, Mehlhorn has said nothing about potential abuses by a Democratic administration. Congressional Democrats? Crickets. They're all following the lead of House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, who is trying desperately to keep the public from learning what their government was up to in the contest between Trump and Clinton.

I doubt anyone will ever write an essay with this or a similar title: "How Democratic Patriots Saved America from Becoming a Banana Republic."

I cringe these days when I hear the expression, "America's two great political parties."

As infuriating as the GOP can be for squandering opportunities and playing the piñata for Leftists, it is a supportable proposition that Republicans generally seek power to help people, while Democrats (not all, of course) seek power to exploit them. And to cover up anything that might expose their real agenda.

With the Democrats' hard left turn, we're down to one great political Party, the GOP, with all its warts. Principled Democratic lawmakers like the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Henry "Scoop" Jackson (throw in Joe Lieberman if you like) are extinct following the age of Obama.

Members of this once great party are either willfully ignorant of how Obama abused his office and the Constitution or, more likely, know it and collaborate in keeping the public in the dark to preserve their own power and status.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) might have been a throwback to Baker, Richardson, and other Republicans who opposed Nixon, but he's remained silent, probably fearful of being pilloried by the left if he doesn't fall in line.

So I ask, is there not one influential Democrat alarmed enough by the corruption in Obama's DOJ and FBI to come forward, declare that patriotism supersedes Party loyalty, and demand an accounting of what really happened during and after the election?

I don’t think so.

Steve Grammatico is the author of You Hear Me, Barack? PC-Free Conservative Satire. He blogs at youhearmebarack.blogspot.com.