Respectfully, that is absolutely incorrect. He is replacing Rehnquist. His elevation to chief justice was seperate. The reason he is replacing Rehnquist as opposed to O'Connor is because it would enable the court to resume Oct. 1st., with a full court and it allows for more time in selecting a replacement for O'Connor.
LOL! Even Dershowitz (on Court TV) thinks the libs acted like asses, with the early ads and the monomaniacal focus on Roe (which I believe he thinks is a bad decision, legally speaking). As a liberal, he wants to see someone as close to the center as possible from a conservative president, and he thinks the lib special-interest groups are insane and spoiling things for "normal" (if that's the word I want) libs.