I can't wait till Stevens retires and Bush is forced to put up a gutless Kennedy/O'Conner-esque moderate because he knows a Democrat Senate will never see a Scalia or Thomas type nominee on the floor for a vote. I wonder how smug and arrogant the cut and run conservative voters will be when that happens and it sinks in that it's ALL THEIR FAULT!!! Was passing on the lesser of two evils worth kissing goodbye the next Supreme Court nomination? Because that's what happened last night. Stevens is 86 and in failing health and will not make it to '08. Ginsburg isn't much better at 74 with a history of cancer. Face it, the conservatives who lost sight of the REAL enemy blew it and blew the chance to make the court really conservative, maybe for a decade or more. That's the reality that some poeple need to swallow. They made this s**t sandwich, when Stevens retires they'll have to eat it!
I don't know the answer to my own question, but if there is a SC vacancy (by death) is Bush required to fill it ? Better to have a 4-4 deadlock than appoint a squishy valueless moderate that you know will vote against you.
If I were Bush I would send up one Judge Bork after another knowing the rats will reject them, and I'd keep it up until 2009 when the next Republican president can appoint the ninth judge in a hopefully more conservative climate.