Because God knows, holding only all the major media and all three branches of government, the GOP has trouble getting its message out.

Democrats blocked 10 of the president's first-term appeals court nominees by filibuster, a parliamentary tactic that requires supporters to post 60 votes to assure a final vote.

The president renominated seven of the 10 after he won re-election. Democrats say they are prepared to block some or all of them again on grounds that they are too conservative to warrant lifetime appointments to the bench.

Republicans have responded by threatening to use their majority to ban juidicial filibusters.

"Senate Democats have abused the rules and refused to even allow a vote," says the television ad produced for Progress for America. "So courtrooms sit empty, while thousands of Americans have their cases delayed."

Progress for America scheduled news conference for Monday to unveil its plans, and officials declined to discuss them in advance. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the material to be made public.

The ad praises two of Bush's seven stalled nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. It says it's the job of a senator to vote, adding, "Urge your senators to vote, up or down."

Janice Rogers Brown was listed as "unqualified" for her state judge post by the California Bar Association for being unwilling to follow legal precedents when they conflicted with her conservative viewpoints. Priscilla Owen was opposed by several Texas newspapers for the same reason - a documented tendency to ignore the law and impose her own political views on those appearing before her, the very definition of an "activist judge."

So if some progressive group like MoveOn.org or the others that have been silent since the election want to step up with some of that donated money and run their own ads, the script should be a no-brainer:

Senate Republicans kept sixty of President Clinton's judicial nominees from receiving a vote. Now they want to change those same rules because Democrats blocked just seven of the most radical candidates ever proposed for lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

Republicans say the tactics they used are now an attack on people of faith. They want to break Senate rules to appoint pro-pollution, anti-woman, anti-consumer judges - judges that will let televangelists use the courts to impose their religion on you, like they tried to do with Terry Schiavo.

Call your Senators today and tell them to live by the same rules they used a few years ago. Fair is fair.

That's 45 seconds, not 29, so it needs editing, but I'm too tired to make it fit. Even so, the strategy is still Adlai Stevenson's:

I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.