And the Gang basically took power from Frist, Specter and Reid regarding nominations. They hold the cards now.
Hate to break in on this late, but those 7 RINOs also had an "out"; if they determined that the "extraordinary circumstances" weren't extraordinary, they could break their pledge.
What's worse, since Roberts didn't draw the "extraordinary circumstances" line, why in the <expletive deleted> did President Bush feel it necessary to nominate someone more likely to be either a clone of O'Connor or Souter than one of Roberts (much less Scalia or Thomas)?
Once again, those seven are RINOs. They would not go along with someone like Janice Rogers Brown, and would probably be inclined to agree with the Dems that she would be too extreme. And two of the Gang are Snowe and Collins and both wanted a female to replace O'Conner.