Step aside, Sarah Palin. The tea party has a new darling: Florida federal Judge Roger Vinson. His ruling Monday throwing out the whole health care law is the ultimate in judicial activism, which conservatives claim to decry.

Court challenges to the health care overhaul center on the federal mandate for individuals to buy insurance. Federal judges are ruling different ways on that question. But only Vinson both rejected the mandate and used that finding to toss out the entire law. The Supreme Court will ultimately decide on all this.

The most outrageous portion of Vinson's ruling -- aside from a quirky reference to the 1773 Tea Party -- is the absurd assertion that "the mere status of being without health insurance, in and of itself, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on interstate commerce."

Tell that to the taxpayers and employers who are now picking up the tab for the 50 million uninsured Americans.

Vinson was appointed by Ronald Reagan, who so admired the principle of judicial restraint that he made it the centerpiece of his domestic agenda in the mid-1980s. He'd be appalled at Vinson's political activism. But then, we're not sure today's tea partyers would be thrilled with Reagan.