WASHINGTON — Sen. Orrin Hatch says some liberals are bigots, blindly smearing a black, female appeals court nominee only because she is a conservative. Democrats, in turn, say Hatch is the bigot trying to play the race card to defend her nomination.

The nominee caught in the crossfire said the flying barbs hurt and are not just politics. "It's personal," said California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said during her confirmation hearing Wednesday that some liberal groups are slamming her because she is "a qualified African-American jurist who doesn't parrot their ideology."

He added, "She is a conservative African-American woman, and for some, that alone disqualifies her nomination to the D.C. Circuit, widely considered a stepping stone to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Hatch showed the committee a cartoon from liberal BlackCommentator.com that depicts her as a female Clarence Thomas — the black, conservative U.S. Supreme Court justice. As fellow black conservatives Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice applaud in the cartoon, President Bush tells Rogers she will fit in well.

"I hope that everyone here considers this cartoon offensive and despicable," Hatch said.

While Hatch said he was not attacking any senators — only outside groups — Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking Democrat on the committee, said Republicans led by Hatch continually falsely accuse them of bigotry as they opposed some conservatives.

"When we opposed Charles Pickering, we were called anti-Southern . . . When we opposed Miguel Estrada, we were called anti-Hispanic . . . When we opposed Priscilla Owen, they were reduced to branding us as anti-woman, a complaint that is so laughable it's hard to even mention it," Leahy said. He added, "And in a particularly despicable ploy . . .when we opposed William Pryor, the right stooped to religious McCarthyism," saying liberals opposed religious people because they might be pro-life on abortion. (Estrada withdrew his nomination amid a filibuster, and Democrats are blocking votes on Owen, Pickering and Pryor).

Leahy said, "Let the right-wing tactic of smears and name-calling subside and disappear. Let us not see the race card dealt from the shameful deck of unfounded charges as some stalwarts of this president's most extreme nominees have come to rely on as they inject partisanship and politics into the appointment and consideration of judges."

Hatch, however, said liberals' strategy against conservative nominees "is like cooking spaghetti: They throw everything at a nominee and, when something sticks, the nominee is done."