The Last Word On The Next SCOTUS Nominee

...comes from Tom Bevan over at Real Clear Politics:

The White House really has a target audience of only four Senators: McCain, Warner, Graham, and DeWine. Bush's pick would need to win support from at least two of these to be confirmable - that's assuming every Democrat votes against the nominee along with defections from the three aforementioned Republican moderates.

Even if Democrats proceed with a filibuster, the calculus remains the same: Bush would need support from only two of the Republican Gang of Four to get to fifty votes, which would then allow Cheney to come down and invoke the nuclear option.

Harry Reid has already as much as said, and Senate Republican strategists HAVE said, that the Democrats are going to filibuster any Bush choice to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor that isn't Alberto Gonzales (a choice would be the last straw for a GOP base that is already up in arms over Republican overspending). That renders the Democrats irrelevant to the President's decision (a status that they, as the minority party, should always have been accorded anyway), and means that as long as he selects somebody that is as competent and qualified as John Roberts, that somebody's constitutionalism should be no obstacle to getting them confirmed, filibuster or no filibuster.

And if it means changing the rule to ban confirmation filibusters, the Dems will have lost their last line of defense, and the floodgates will be wide open.

This is why we sought a big Senate majority, ladies and gents. Please, PLEASE don't screw it up again.