…I don’t see why the president can’t choose the most conservative person possible. The Democrats will never — never — filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. It was fine to do it with appellate judges because nobody cares about those but advocates. This is going to be the major news story of the summer, and the simple argument that the president and the nominee deserve an up-or-down vote will trump any of the more sophisticated nonsense that might be thrown at them.

What might conceivably derail any nominee won’t be policy, their view on Roe, or anything like that. It will be past, personal stuff. It’s always personal stuff. Anybody remember the effort to deny Rhenquist the job as chief by floating the story that he had worked to suppress black voters in Arizona — and that he’d lived in a restricted community?

Remember, all the Dems need is a few wimpy Republicans to go weak-kneed. On the other hand, it’s far from clear that the Dem senators up for reelection in the Bush states — Nelson of Nebraska, Nelson of Florida and Landrieu of Louisiana especially — will be comfortable voting “no.”

This is fun, isn’t it?