President Bush declares that he is in Beijing for the Olympics to enjoy the sporting events and to cheer on the Americans, not to condemn his hosts' human rights record.

Whew, that's good, because Bush is in no position to criticize someone else's disregard of human rights when his administration has treated our Constitution -- and thus our civil rights -- as a doormat.

Since my editors have declared a moratorium on use of the hackneyed cliche "pot calling the kettle black," I'll have to think of some other metaphor to describe Bush chastising China on human rights violations, as he did before arriving there.

How about, "Well, if that isn't the fatback calling the bacon greasy"?

However you describe it, Bush's finger-wagging admonishment of China's government for human rights offenses is the height of hypocrisy.

No one is naive enough to think that previous administrations in Washington didn't spy on, infiltrate and try to disrupt or neutralize citizens and organizations that they deemed -- rightly or wrongly -- a threat to national security. The belated disclosures of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's dirty tricks against civil rights leaders and student organizations, for instance, show that previous administrations in effect implemented their own ill-named Patriot Acts to justify their abuses.

Those offenses against democracy were, primarily, the result of renegade officials who wielded too much unchecked power. Previous administrations didn't try to legalize their actions by, for instance, dismissing the Geneva Convention as "quaint," or holding "enemy combatants" and just plain suspects for unlimited amounts of time without charges.

Has any other administration contracted out torture by secretly flying captives to countries where torture is commonplace?

Bush and his administration cannot be held solely liable for the offenses against civil rights of recent years: The quiescent news media swept up in the "war on terror" hysteria deserve some of the blame, as does a Congress full of elected officials too frightened to stand up and say, "ENOUGH!"

Lastly, We the People share the blame, since we too -- in the name of protecting our rights -- willingly handed them over.

Here's something those of us who did that seem never to have considered: If we give up all of our rights in the name of protecting them, pretty soon we will have no rights to protect. Ask the next North Korean you see.

Despite the contentions of jingoistic commentators who are little more than water-carriers for the Bush administration, it is indeed possible to criticize this country and to love it. Those of us who do both have to cringe when we think that, under Bush, the government has not only spied on citizens and tapped private phone lies, but also has tried to institutionalize such bad behavior in the name of protecting us.

Patriots don't act that way.

Bush can criticize China's human rights stands until he turns blue. The truth is, though, that simply by attending the games in that communist country he is giving his tacit endorsement of the regime's tactics.

Of course, the International Olympic Committee did that first -- when it awarded the games to China.

Too bad "hypocrisy" isn't an Olympic sport. We know who would bring home the gold.

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