In fairness, the judge had no choice but to rule the way he did because of bad earlier Supreme Court precedent. Similar to Judge Alito once striking down a Pennsylvania pro-life statute.
However, at the time may of us noted that Jones could have simply issued a routine ruling citing precedent and left it at that. The fact that he issued such a rhetorically harsh, grandstanding type ruling made it apparent that he was playing to the media and the leftist law journal crowd. In other words, the Greenhouse Effect was Souterizing him.
His whining and his joining in with O'Connor & Ginzburg on their silly crusade to shut down any disagreement with liberal rulings only confirms that this is the case.
He was "rhetorically harsh" because he didn't appreciate the ID people making up stories that might fly whenever it suited them to do so, and he called them on it.
No, he was disgusted by perjury committed in the name of religion.
Except, of course, that the Thomas More Law Center specifically asked him to rule on the merits of ID.
That was their strategy, that was why they went looking for a school board to enact policy guaranteed to provoke a court challenge.
Blame the Thomas More Law Center for the harshness of the ruling, not the judge.