Excuse me, but you really think Roberts is going to sail through. The dems are asking their questions now and going through the motions, but they have NO intention of giving in on Roberts. Bank on this, they WILL come up with some excuse to fillibuster Roberts, as stupid as it is. Why? First off, if they give in, their far left base will slaughter them. Second, if they force the Republicans to exercise the constitutional option, then they can use it as an excuse to not even give the next nominee a hearing. The Judiciary committee will not meet, no hearings, voila, no Bush Supreme Court nominee.
Then they risk the nuclear option, canceling the fillibuster option for the next nominee. Of course, if they save their fillibuster for judge #2 then the nuke option can start then. If the Senators have the cojones, which they likely don't.
No flip I do not believe Roberts is "sailing through." I just believe the next one is going to be 900 times worse.
This has been a kind of balk move. Roberts was after all nominated, in the first instance, for the O'Connor seat. What does it mean, then, to say that the Democrats have any justification - even in their own minds - to treat Roberts as the replacement for Rhenquist, and not as the nominee to replace O'Connor? Clearly Bush would have nominated Roberts to replace O'Connor; before Rhenquist's death he did exactly that.In effect Bush says that he will nominate who he will nominate - and it really doesn't matter who is being replaced. But of course it actually does matter who is being replaced; until the Senate votes in her replacement O'Connor still sits on the bench. And I have predicted that that will make it very difficult to get her replacement confirmed - so long as she doesn't resign outright both the conservatives and the liberals have something to lose if they consider her replacement to possibly be worse than O'Connor - which could very easily be a majority of the Senate.
My conclusion is that O'Connor will sit on the bench until she submits an outright resignation, effective on a date certain.