There's been a lot of gnashing of teeth over the allegedly "widespread" civil rights abuses since Sept. 11. Well, it's a good thing the Patriot Act requires the DOJ's inspector general to investigate civil rights complaints. The last report, issued over the summer, found that there were 34 "credible" allegations of abuse out of 1,037 claims made over a six-month period (note: that's allegations, not convictions). And most of these "credible" but unproven allegations involved such horrors as verbal harassment of prisoners by prison guards. That's not nice and it shouldn't happen, but it's hardly 1930s Germany.

The complaints of lost civil rights go on. We hear about prisoners "kept in secret" when they're really not. Rather, the government won't release their names to the media - or to the terrorists who are keen to find out such information. However, the prisoners themselves - through their lawyers or families - are free to release their names.

The ACLU says that the feds can secretly enter your home while you're out and rifle through your files, underwear drawer, whatever. Well, that's true, if the cops get a warrant first and notify you later. If that scares you, I'm sorry. But it's hardly something new.

And of course, there's the partisanship. John Ashcroft (for whom my wife works) is the most unpopular man in the universe - if you go by what the Ashcroft-phobes say. There's nothing you can say that goes far enough for the hysterical base of the increasingly hysterical Democratic party. Senator John F. Kerry declared at a recent debate that he could see in the audience "people from every background, every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is, indeed, John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here."

One might ask Kerry, "Have you no shame, Senator?" But it's too late for that. The pertinent question now is: "Have you lost your mind?" Ashcroft's job approval rating with the American people is about the same or higher than every major Democratic figure, including Hillary and Bill Clinton and Tom Daschle. The Ashcroft - and Bush - haters need to get out more.

Indeed, we're told there's a nationwide groundswell against the supposed "trampling of civil liberties." But two years of Gallup polls show that as many people think the government hasn't gone "far enough" restricting civil liberties in order to fight terrorism as think it's gone "too far." Meanwhile, a solid majority believe - and have believed all along - that the government's gotten it "about right" on civil liberties.

This should be sobering to the people who have steadily beaten the drums about this stuff because it shows that most Americans don't take them seriously - and they're right not to.