No Way.
Scalia deserved to be the Chief Justice and I am sure was itching to be nominated. If Scalia were to resign, I would not be surprised.
President Bush continues on his path of appeasement with the RATs.
What a sad commentary on the state of conservatism that President Bush did not have the fight in him for three hearings with the RATs (Roberts, new Justice #2, and Chief Justice (Scalia). President Bush felt he had only the fight in him for two hearings in stead of three.
Sad. Tragic. Outrageous.
When you and the rest of the complainers about Scalia not being elevated become President then you can do whatever you want.
I don't think this was about 3 hearings vs two.
First, Scalia himself said it was rare to move up within the SC, because it caused animosity.
2nd, there are a lot of important cases coming up, and with a lot of them they will need O'Conner's vote to get a 5-4 decision (if she votes against, it will be 4-5, but for most of these a 4-4 is the wrong outcome because of the ruling of the lower courts).
3rd, the Dems would have been tempted to hold up Roberts for any number of reasons so as to start the session with 8 justices, O'Conner still there, but with no Rehnquist, meaning we would need both O'Conner AND Kennedy and still might end up with 4-4 ties. This move is the only way to get what could be a solid conservative vote to replace Rehnquist there in time for the session.
And since O'Conner offered to stay on until her replacement was confirmed, the court can start with 9 justices. And since Roberts is already into confirmation hearings, and since the "vetting" for the position is unchanged, it is reasonable to think he can get there before the first monday in October.
AND, if the dem's try to delay, Bush can point out that he went to the trouble of changing his nominations around to "help" ensure that the court had 9 justices (if he had left things as they were, he would have guaranteed only 8 justices would be there -- this way his argument that it was extremely important to have all 9 justices in place still applies).
And in the long term, Roberts was always the guy Bush wanted for Chief. I think the reason it took so long to make the nomination before was that Bush was waiting to find out what Rehnquist was going to do. He wanted Roberts for this position.
In no case do I see this as capitulation to the Democrats. They don't like Roberts, it's just that they can't find enough stuff to pin on him.