The Liberal FISA Judge

When a judge on the now infamous FISA court resigned in protest this week, the mainstream media ate it up as though this represented some type of slap at the Bush Administration. In fact, as Robert Novak points out in his column, this guy was one of the most liberal judges on the court and a frequent opponent of the Bush Administration:

WASHINGTON -- Federal District Judge James Robertson, who resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court in protest over secret wiretaps ordered by President Bush, is regarded in Washington legal circles as one of President Bill Clinton's most liberal and partisan judicial appointments.

Robertson, 67, has ruled consistently against the Bush administration's handling of enemy combatants. On July 15 this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed his 2004 ruling that a military commission could not try alleged terrorist Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

In private Washington practice before going on the court, Robertson was an aggressive civil rights advocate. He spent 1969-1972 with the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, serving for a time as the organization's chief counsel in Jackson, Miss. In 1994, Clinton named him to the federal bench, where he remains despite his resignation from the FISA court.

I'll believe this guy's serious when he resigns his lifetime appointment to the bench.