Where are the activist judges coming from?

“Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep."—Thomas Jefferson, 1789.

Remember this, as you witness the spectacle over President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.

Incensed by Republican characterizations that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is an “obstructionist,” the charismatically challenged Senator & Company have been insisting they aren’t. In fact, they cling to the claim like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

Remember also, almost every Democrat senator who denounced the filibuster a decade ago has miraculously come to Jesus today. Still, they have yet to explain how this embarrassing conversion is based on something other than the fact they’re no longer in the majority.

At a recent pro-filibuster rally, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.,—a recent convert to the filibuster—lovingly gushed over Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., as her “inspiration.” Unlike Boxer, Sen. Byrd is at least consistent. The former Ku Klux Klan member filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Yet, apparently, it’s shocking to Democrats that a Republican-controlled Senate should want to confirm a Republican president’s judicial nominees.

One might ask why the liberal loons want to block, for example, Texas Judge Priscilla Owen’s nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals or California Judge Janice Brown’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

NARAL Pro-Choice America put it this way: “These nominees have records of extreme judicial activism.”

As for Judge Owen, one reason Democrats apparently have their underwear all in a bunch is that she interpreted a Texas law that required parental consent before a minor girl could have an abortion to mean—well—just that. An April 28 New York Times editorial had this to say about Judge Brown: “Justice Janice Brown, currently a member of the California Supreme Court, is an extreme right-wing ideologue.”

(Of course, we all recognize that an “extreme left-wing ideologue” would be way cool with the New York Times. Ain’t it a bummer when your side loses all three branches of government in one election?)

Still Democrats refuse to clarify what “extremist right-wing ideologue” means.

Clearly, by claiming the judicial nominees are “activists” who will shred our rights at every chance, Democrats perhaps hope to reap some semblance of—well—something.

Yet, they ignore their own liberal appointees’ method of simply rewriting laws whenever they see fit:

· The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently “discovered” a right to same gender marriage in that state’s constitution—a document, you may note, written by John Adams in the year 1780.

· The Nevada Supreme Court ordered the state legislature to ignore specific language in the Nevada Constitution that required a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes.

· According to a study conducted by Concerned Women for America, the reversal rate of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco by the U.S. Supreme Court is about 80 percent higher than any other federal circuit court. In one session, the United States Supreme Court actually reversed 97 percent of the 9th Circuit’s decisions.

You may also wish to note that Democratic presidents appointed 16 of the appellate judges reversed. Republican presidents appointed three. And more than half of the judges currently sitting on the 9th Circuit were appointed by whom? Oh yes—President Bill Clinton.

In light of these examples, perhaps obstructionist Democratic senators abusing the filibuster could explain why they think President Bush’s judicial nominees are the “extreme” ones?