Conservatives Judging Conservatives

In what Fox news calls "a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration," a federal judge in South Carolina yesterday ordered the United States to charge "dirty-bomb" suspect José Padilla with a crime within 45 days, or let him go. Padilla had been held as an "enemy combatant" at the Charleston Naval Brig in S.C. for two and a half years. U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd ruled that President Bush had overstepped his authority in detaining a U.S. citizen indefinitely without charging him.

Floyd, as it happens, was a Bush appointee in 2003, supported by right-wing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Another example, perhaps, of a conservative who balks at rubber-stamping conservative (or at least Bush administration) dogma?