Kermit the Frog's familiar lament on Sesame Street, "It's not easy being green," now comes to mind for me in the context of, "It's not easy being a moderate Republican" these days.

The last straw was President Bush's decision to commute the three-year prison sentence of Lewis Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff. Libby was convicted of lying to a grand jury in the by-now-well-known case of the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Whatever was the president thinking? Commuting the sentence before a day was served for an obvious lie whose only purpose could have been to protect the vice president or the president himself?

The president is trifling with the rule of law, one of the things most of us moderate Republicans (indeed, most Americans) value highly.

LOYALTIES UNDER FIRE

We moderates have had our loyalties sorely tested by this administration. There is, of course, the issue of the bungling of the Iraq War. Many of us initially supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein. I was nave enough to believe the president was bluffing, threatening the attack as a way to force Saddam to allow a more thorough U.N. inspection.

In retrospect, that position puts me right up there with Kermit on the issue of being gullible. Had we given the United Nations an additional six months, it would have been clear that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and, in fact, was slowly imploding on its own.

In short, had a moderate been president we wouldn't be in Iraq today.

However, we are in Iraq. We have compounded our initial mistakes, and now appear to be in a situation where some form of partition is the likely result. Setting the boundaries of this partition will be messy and bloody.

The U.S. forces will simply be bystanders caught in the middle much in the way British forces were caught in between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the carving out of a Jewish homeland.

Ours is not a winning hand.

As if Iraq is not enough of a challenge for us moderates, the president also decided to ignore the provisions of legislation expressly passed to provide guidelines for the government in the surveillance of U.S. citizens.

Even though the legislation provided an avenue to quickly authorize wiretaps in situations where national security issues were paramount, the president simply declared himself not bound by this law.

Recently, of course, the vice president has chosen to declare himself not bound by the laws that govern the handling of classified material. The idea that the president and the vice president can declare themselves not bound by particular laws is a bit disturbing to me.

Laws can be inconvenient, of course, but our democracy depends on all of us following them. If we don't like a particular law, we can petition Congress or the courts to have it changed or its interpretation clarified. Even presidents do not have the right to simply disregard the law.

So there are many things just now that make it not easy being a moderate Republican. I suspect our two senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, might feel a little like Kermit these days as well.

Yet, we moderate Republicans occupy solid political ground in need of defending. We believe strongly in fiscal responsibility -- another discipline that seems to have deserted the current administration.

A RIGHT TO CHOOSE

We tend to be liberal on social issues such as a woman's right to choose. We are strong in our support for education, might consider basic universal health coverage, and are four square for entrepreneurism.

My daughters and my wife have been after me for the past several years to give up on the Republican Party. I have resisted, believing that moderate Republicans have an important role to play.

We need more people willing to work across the aisle rather than more polarizing between the parties.

I admit that this administration has sorely tested me. I welcome the time when we will be able to put this period behind us.

Then we moderate Republicans can help play a role in restoring the rule of law to its rightful place at the core of our democracy.