You call that a debate?

They were all there this time – Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson.

All four frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination showed up for last week’s debate moderated by lifelong Democratic Party activist and sometimes “journalist” Chris Matthews.

Go figure.

Just a few weeks ago, none of those four showed up for a debate moderated by me and sponsored by a coalition of “values voters.”

Conventional wisdom would tell you that Republican candidates would be more cautious about a debate sponsored by a Democrat, particularly one who recently claimed members of the Bush administration had “finally been caught in their criminality,” than one hosted by people inclined to vote Republican and moderated by an independent journalist who believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Once again, conventional wisdom proves wrong.

In fact, despite repeated opportunities, none of the Republican candidates challenged Matthews’ inexplicable partisan attack a week earlier.

It was at the 10th anniversary party for his MSNBC “Hardball” show that Matthews made the charge. He started by claiming he was going to “make some news.”

Apparently, Matthews’ definition of “news” is when an alleged “newsman” makes reckless, unsubstantiated, partisan attacks.

According to Matthews, the Clinton administration never put pressure on his bosses to silence him. And why should it? Did he ever say anything to which it disapproved?

“Not so this crowd,” he added. He claimed White House officials and those working for Vice President Dick Cheney had called MSNBC executives to complain about the content of his show and influence the editorial content of it.

“They will not silence me!” he declared. “They’ve finally been caught in their criminality.”

Criminality?

Is it a crime for elected officials to complain about the content of broadcasts – even those with extremely limited audiences like Matthews’ show?

If it were, perhaps Matthews might have noticed 41 members of the U.S. Senate signed a letter to Rush Limbaugh’s boss attempting to silence him. There was nary a Republican among them.

Matthews also may have forgotten efforts orchestrated by Bill and Hillary Clinton to silence those who actually questioned their policies throughout the 1990s – people like me.

They didn’t bother calling my boss to complain – maybe because I didn’t have one other than God in heaven, and I don’t think He would have responded well. They went directly to the strong-arm tactics of ruthless tyrants.

Bill Clinton didn’t mess around kvetching. He used his office of the presidency to go directly to the Internal Revenue Service to get me audited. The ordeal took nine months and nearly bankrupted me and my news organization. But the IRS couldn’t find anything wrong with our books.

By the way, though I was the one to blow the whistle on this practice by the Clinton White House of using the IRS to target its enemies, I was hardly the only victim. Dozens and dozens of individuals and organizations were attacked the same way.

The White House, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, also put together an enemies list in the form of a report called “The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce,” a 331-page report naming me the ringleader of the “vast, right-wing media conspiracy” of Hillary’s dreams. It was selectively distributed to friendly reporters, probably including Chris Matthews, in an effort to discredit me among my colleagues.

To put together such a document, which included several pages of pseudo-biographical material on me, required the White House itself to keep dossiers on private citizens, something generally frowned upon by civil libertarians and people of conscience like Matthews.

I’ll only mention in passing the two suspicious break-ins that took place at my office during this period (and no other). I’ll only mention in passing that my Post Office box was burglarized, while hundreds of other boxes were left alone. I’ll only mention in passing that when I turned around and sued the White House, my lawyer, too, was audited!

I could go on and on. I’ve told these stories many times before. I don’t want to bore anyone already familiar with this history. But I think it is all very relevant to the specious claims of Chris Matthews. It also makes me wonder why Republicans allow themselves to be accused of this kind of mischief without the slightest evidence and never pursue real criminality perpetrated in broad daylight by their so-called political adversaries.

I suspect it’s because we don’t really have two political parties in this country. In essence, we have one – it’s the incumbent party, the status quo party, the business-as-usual party.

It’s the kind of party that allows one of its members, Sandy Berger, to steal highly classified documents from the National Archives, get away with a slap on the wrist and return to the game as a policy adviser to the woman who expects to be the next president.

It’s the kind of party that fears questions from the likes of Phyllis Schlafly more than those from partisan motor-mouth Chris Matthews.

It’s the kind of party that has no intention of giving the American people a real choice for president in 2008.

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