Will The Coalition Still Chill?

Now that Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement, and with Rehnquist possibly to follow, the Coalition of the Chillin' hovers in limbo...as Jeff at the Bernoulli Effect says, we stand 'maximally positioned and properly chilled', and I think our embrace of the compromise has been vindicated. Speaking only for myself, though, one of the reasons I DID embrace the compromise was the belief that if we had to go nuclear, we should do it when the stakes are the highest...and on the judicial front, it obviously doesn't get higher than this.

So consider two possible outcomes: the Dems do filibuster, or they don't...if they do, I think it is reasonable to say all bets are off. We can go nuclear, if not gladly, then it least with the knowledge that we gave it all the ol' college try. The more likely outcome, though, is that we can expect, regardless of who the nominee is, an overblown reaction, full of bluster and apocalyptic rhetoric, followed by political impotence. Simply put, there is not much that can be done to stop the confirmation of Bush's nominee(s), unless he sends up someone unacceptable to both sides (a very remote possibility, indeed), but Harry Reid, and the rest of the Democratic leadership, will be unable to resist the chance to pose and preen and just generally make complete jackasses of themselves. And I intend to be there watching and loving every single solitary minute of it...

Who will that nominee be? Let's check in once more with Erick-Woods Erickson, who has been all over this story like Garfield on lasagna. He says...well, I'm not going to tell you, you need to read it yourself, it's fully of juicy gossipy goodness...