I am sublimely confident that normal Americans will not be shocked to learn that a Republican Senate plans to confirm the judicial nominees of a Republican president –- despite the objections of radical elements of a party that is the minority in the Senate, the minority in the House, the loser in the last two presidential races, the minority in state governorships, and the minority in all but a tiny number of very small but densely populated enclaves in this country that need to tax Rush Limbaugh, even though he lives in another state, just to keep all their little socialist programs afloat.

The question Republicans need to ask is: Why do the Democrats want to keep judicial nominees like Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen off the federal bench?

As I understand it, the reason Democrats are in a blind rage about Priscilla Owen is that, as a state court judge in Texas, Owen interpreted a law passed by the Texas Legislature requiring parental consent for 14-year-old girls to have abortions to mean that parental consent was required for 14-year-old girls to have abortions.

I think Americans need to hear Democrats explain that.

Democrats oppose Janice Rogers Brown because she's black. One cartoon on Blackcommentator.com shows President Bush introducing Brown to Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, with Bush saying, "Welcome to the bench, Ms. Clarence – I mean, Ms. Rogers Brown. You'll fit right in!"

Let's see, what do those four have in common? Two secretaries of state, a former general, a former professor and a Supreme Court justice ... What's the common thread? I know there's something – but what is it?

There's a whole array of groups opposed to Brown: People for the American Way, the National Women's Law Center, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Feminist Majority, the Aryan Nation and so on.

But their actual objections to Brown are somewhat opaque. The Web page of "People for a Small Slice of the Upper West Side Way" contains a lengthy diatribe on Brown's nightmarish extremism while managing never, ever to give one specific example. In fact, if you take out "Janice Rogers Brown" and replace it with "Tom DeLay," it makes just as much sense when you read it.

This is what we get by way of explanation on the horror show that is Janice Rogers Brown:

* "ideological extremism"

* "aggressive judicial activism"

* "even further to the right than the most far-right justices"

* "prone to inserting conservative political views into her appellate opinions"

* "many disturbing dissents"

* "a disturbing tendency to try to remake the law"

* "extreme states' rights and anti-federal-government positions"

* "working to push the law far to the right"

* "doesn't hate America and all that it stands for"

OK, I made up that last one.

Conservatives never attack liberal judges this way. We simply say: He found the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional ... He found a right to gay marriage in a state constitution written in 1780 by John Adams ... He ruled that smelly homeless people have a constitutional right to stink up public libraries and scare patrons ... He excluded 80 pounds of cocaine found in the defendant's car on the grounds that it was reasonable to run from the police when the police are viewed as "corrupt, violent and abusive."

Democrats want to terrify people by claiming Bush's judicial nominees are nutcase extremists hell-bent on shredding the Constitution – as opposed to liberals' preferred method of simply rewriting it on a daily basis – but they're terrified that someone might ask them what they mean by "extremist." So let's ask!

If the details helped liberals, I promise you we'd be hearing the details. Most important, if liberals could win in the court of public opinion, they wouldn't need the federal courts to hand them their victories in the first place. The reason liberals refuse to elaborate on "extremist right-wing ideologue" is that they need liberal courts to give them gay marriage, a godless Pledge of Allegiance, abortion on demand, nude dancing, rights for pederasts, and everything else they could never win in America if it were put to a vote.

Republicans are letting them get away with it by allowing the debate on judges to consist of mind-numbing arguments about the history of the filibuster. Note to Republicans: Of your six minutes on television, use 30 seconds to point out the Democrats are abusing the filibuster and the other 5 1/2 minutes to ask liberals to explain why they think Bush's judicial nominees are "extreme."

copyright 2005 ann coulter, distributed by universal press syndicate