For all the talk about civil liberties by Democrats, I believe they have demonstrated once again that they are no less totalitarian than the Republicans, even Bush, Cheney, and the gaggle of neocons that set policy in this country. In today’s Opinion Journal, John C. Whitehead tells of receiving a call from Eliot Spitzer, who in the rest of this post will simply be called “Mr. Evil.”

While I would urge readers to read the entire piece (which is brief), the following exchange should be enough to demonstrate that one of the “stars” of the Democratic Party (and a darling of the New York Times editorial page) simply is a thuggish rogue and nothing else:

“Mr. Whitehead, it’s now a war between us and you’ve fired the first shot. I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter.”

Readers of my posts know that I have been extremely critical of “libertarians” who have been cheerleaders for various prosecutors who manage to indict for political reasons. While I have no use for Scooter Libby and Tom DeLay, I also have no use for the prosecutors in these cases — or for “libertarians” who have been their supporters.In the Libby case, the special prosecutor and his staff knew early on that no laws had been broken in the so-called outing of Valerie Plame, yet the investigation continues to this day in the hopes that they can hang indictments on Karl Rove. In the DeLay case, prosecutor Ronnie Earle did everything that prosecutors should never do. First, he targeted someone, then tried to twist the law in order to obtain an indictment. Second, he shopped for grand juries in hopes of getting indictments, something a prosecutor is honor bound never to do.

Paul Craig Roberts and others have demonstrated time and again that U.S. prosecutors are out-of-control thugs. Mr. Evil, a Democrat, is the clear favorite to win the governorship of New York next year, and is mentioned as a future president. Rudy Giuliani is still feted as a hero by many.

While I realize that Scooter Libby and Tom DeLay are unsavory characters, it bothers me greatly to see so-called civil libertarians express joy in their indictments because they support the political outcomes behind them. As long as we endorse the abuse of the courts and the laws because we happen to like some of the outcomes, then we really do not understand what is happening in this country. Furthermore, if we are willing to accept the Spitzers and Fitzgeralds and Earles as “heroes,” then we have absolutely no right to criticize anything that Bush and Cheney have done. If we champion the abuse of law in one place, we by default champion it everywhere.