If a senator wants to delay, Specter can't stop it. It's in the rules.
3. At the request of any Member, or by action of the Chairman, a bill, matter, or nomination on the agenda of the Committee may be held over until the next meeting of the Committee or for one week, whichever occurs later.
How many times can the delay tactic be used? Specter says it was already used when the hearings were rescheduled from January 2nd to January 9th.
Specter said that their "one week" was the one at the first of this month...
The best we can hope for is that the democrats realise that the announcement in November really binds them to some degree, that there really isn't anything extraordinary here, and that Leahy/Specter will work it out so the committee will vote on thursday instead of tuesday. Specter would agree with that because that's the way he is.
Then the democrats will hope that something, ANYTHING, comes up before thursday, so they can show up and apologetically announce that, because of the NEW information, they are holding for a week, which will push it out to the next THURSDAY instead of the next TUESDAY.
At some point Specter will get tired of being treated like trash, but I can't say when that will be.
When it is all over, the dems will then filibuster.
The only thing that can stop this is if the main stream media says that they are wrong to do so. Otherwise, there is no risk to the democrats. We all have the internet, but the average person still gets a sense of what is right and wrong from the big media, and it's only when the media tells the truth about democrats that the democrats become reasonable.
Like with Roberts, the media said he was great, so the democrats had to give in.