[DVaut1]

The political implications of this are immense, given that the Bush administration is already going to have to juggle New Orleans and the Roberts nomination hearings; I assume the Bush administration might already have a short-list of possible nominees in place, as they've surely done much vetting of other candidates during the Roberts search. But I suspect the Bush administration (if only for communication/message simplicity) will likely try to delay the next nomination as long as possible.

Not only that, the question of who replaces Rehnquist as Chief Justice makes this discussion somewhat larger than the one surrounding the Roberts nomination. It will be interesting to see who Bush decides ought to replace Rehnquist as Chief Justice (perhaps Roberts, even).