President George W. Bush and other conservatives complain about "activist judges" whose rulings on things like gay marriage are contrary to conservative principles. So when given a chance to appoint a judge without getting the Senate's approval, whom does Bush go to? Charles W. Pickering - staunch conservative and unabashed judicial activist.

CBS News interviewed Pickering:

10 years ago, three young white men were arrested for burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. Two of the three defendants pleaded guilty to avoid going to jail. Prosecutors initially thought – wrongly -- that the third defendant, Daniel Swan, had been the ringleader, so they offered him the worst plea deal, which would have required 18 months in prison. He turned it down, and he went to trial.

Says Pickering, "He didn't feel like it was right for the others not to have any jail time and for him to go to the penitentiary. And the jury convicted him…of a hate crime… And then the government came back and recommended 7-1/2 years sentence, which I thought was a bad case of disproportionate sentencing. No proportionality." ... Pickering said this was the worst case of disproportionate sentencing he'd ever seen, especially since the real ringleader (who didn't go to prison) had attacked the same house before. ... So Judge Pickering, instead of following federal sentencing guidelines of five years in prison, put strong pressure on prosecutors to drop part of Swan's hate-crime conviction. The prosecutors finally gave in and the judge sentenced Swan to 2 1/2 years in prison.

So... the worst case of disproportionate sentencing in his entire career involved someone who burned a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple?

Rebuttable Presumption comments:

I briefly worked at a U.S. Probation Office, and learned how strict and blind to individual circumstances the federal sentencing guidelines are. Let's just say that I am not very fond of them. Be that as it may, they are the law, and I really haven't heard of a judge simply dismissing the guidelines like Judge Pickering is accused of having done. ... [T]he fact that Judge Pickering is willing to bend the rules to follow his conscience, well... That pegs him as a judicial activist, doesn't it? Combine it with his "conservative" idealogy, and you got a "conservative" judicial activist.

Conservatives like George W. Bush don't object to judicial activism - never have and never will. They only object to "activism" that arrives at decisions and ideas contrary to their own. This is similar to the federalism debate - the federal government interfering in states is good when it involves things like upholding the war on drugs or stopping physician-assisted suicide, but bad when it comes to enforcing civil rights statutes. Judicial activism and federal power are good when used on behalf of causes they like, bad when used on behalf of causes they don't like. That's not an unusual or strange perspective - guns in the hands of trained, professional police officers are generally good but the same guns in the hands of criminals are generally bad. The key, however, is to be honest and admit when this is the case.