That's Right Mr. President, Democracy Begins At Home.

Finally, after months of rhetorical grandstanding about "freedom and democracy" abroad, accompanied the cheerleading of my conservative friends at home, a principled Federal Judge has given George W. Bush, and my conservative friends, a lesson in what freedom and democracy are really all about:

By JACOB JORDAN Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. Mar 1, 2005 — In a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration, a federal judge ruled the case of "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla is a matter for law enforcement not the military and ordered the government to charge him or let him go.

Padilla's more than 2 1/2 years in custody, most of it spent in a Navy brig, don't seem closer to an end, however, because Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki said the government will appeal the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., ruled Monday that the government can not hold Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," a designation President Bush gave him in 2002. The government views Padilla as a militant who planned attacks on the United States, including with a "dirty bomb" radiological device.

Floyd wrote in his 23-page opinion that to rule in favor of the government "would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition," it would be a "betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties."

Floyd, appointed by Bush in 2003, gave the administration 45 days to take action....

Of course, my conservative friends should not let this make them downcast. They have all the power in Congress they need to exercise the "nuclear option" and appoint all the unprincipled judges they want, and these judges can fix the problem down the road.