If Democrats were truly concerned about the civil liberties of United States citizens and preventing certain branches of government from abusing its powers, they would rein in the hyper-partisan, megalomaniacal Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Waxman has used his seemingly unbridled investigative powers and taxpayer funds literally to harass the administration with hundreds of investigations and target other political enemies.

The American Spectator reports that Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin monitoring and compiling reports on the radio talk shows of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and other conservative hosts.

Though Waxman denies the report, The American Spectator is standing by its story, "which was conveyed to us by an Oversight Committee staffer." The American Spectator Editor in Chief R. Emmett Tyrell Jr. affirmed the report to Rush Limbaugh's guest host Jason Lewis on the program Thursday. Yet, we hear nothing but silence from the Democrats' civil-libertarian wing.

The Democrats' casual indifference to real civil-rights encroachments against their political enemies makes suspect their professed concern over civil liberties theoretically placed in jeopardy by the administration's range of counterterrorism policies that have truly saved American lives.

Since there hasn't been any real diminution in Americans' civil liberties by the administration, something else must be at work in the Democrats' perpetual obstruction of the administration's efforts to fight this war. It is giving them the benefit of the doubt to assume they don't assess the global jihadist threat to be as severe as the administration and other Republicans do. Alternative assumptions -- placing their partisan interests above the national interest -- are even less charitable.