The Carter Administration -- still not over.

Andrew McCarthy blasts Judge Diggs-Taylor with both barrels:

It would be wrong and regrettable, but it is certainly conceivable that the Supreme Court will eventually find the Bush administration’s NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program unconstitutional. One thing is certain, though. Such a ruling by the high Court will not rely on the handiwork of Michigan federal district judge Anna Diggs Taylor. Her effort yesterday to invalidate the program is a transparently political screed.

Judge Taylor last garnered national attention in 2002 when she was caught trying to rig the outcome of an affirmative-action case. Now, this relic of the Jimmy Carter twilight has fixed her gaze on a war against ruthless enemies who have already attacked the United States massively, serially and globally — an enemy whose leadership is unabashed in telling us, repeatedly, that its devout mission is an exponentially more devastating reprise of 9/11’s carnage.

And what does this jurist see? What she calls “the War on Terror of this administration” — not of the American people, but of George W. Bush — which “[p]redictably” seeks to evade judicial review.

Yes, here we have the thematic history of the administration that has fought to defeat jihadists … as told by a vestige of the administration that first empowered jihadists.

Real the whole thing. It's certainly well deserved.

If judges are allowed to continue to make policy, no president need ever be completely out of office until all of his appointees are still on the bench. There's an old, and lousy, tradition of rewarding campaign supporters, political hacks, with judgeships. Some turn out well, as Justice Rehnquist's judgeship did, but most are underqualified or nonqualified.