It's (apparently) Alito

President Bush has apparently settled on Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. All of the available evidence suggests that this is a much better pick than Harriet Miers (though I still wanted to watch the spectacle that a Janice Rogers Brown nomination would undoubtedly have caused.) Alito is called "Scalito" by many people, in recognition of his philisophical and judicial similarities to Antonin Scalia. That's a good thing.

Here are the people who are going to be under the gun when the Alito nomination heads, as it certainly will, to the full Senate - the "Gang of 14."

Signatories

Republicans	Democrats
Lincoln Chafee (Rhode Island)	Robert Byrd (West Virginia)
Susan Collins (Maine)	Daniel Inouye (Hawaii)
Mike DeWine (Ohio)	Mary Landrieu (Louisiana)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)	Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut)
John McCain (Arizona)	Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
John Warner (Virginia)	Mark Pryor (Arkansas)
Olympia Snowe (Maine)	Ken Salazar (Colorado)

Will the Democrats who signed that Memorandum of Understanding consider Alito's nomination to represent "extraordinary circumstances?" And if so, will at least 3-4 of the Republicans have the guts to eliminate the filibuster?


Update:
Does Senator Lindsey Graham really mean this?

But Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, fired back Sunday, saying that if the Democrats staged a filibuster against Judge Alito or Judge Luttig because of their conservatism, "the filibuster will not stand."

We can only hope. I would not be surprised if we're headed to a showdown.