Ysterday Daily Kos posted a rumor that Cheif Justice Rehnquist will be announcing plans to step down from the high bench today. The Washington Post picked up the story/rumor as well. Kos gave a time window though that just passed:

The big DC rumor is that Rehnquist will announce his retirement tomorrow between 10-11 a.m. ET.

Well he hasn’t announced, that’s for sure. Quietly notified the President? Maybe. Could it just be an empty rumor not really based on anything but conjecture? Very possible. But considering all the factors it seems quite likely that he will step down sometime soon. If not today, then maybe in another week. We shall see.

Of course, as everyone is buzzing, this creates the dual nomination process, that might actually be easier if the President agrees to a compromise by proposing a moderate (Gonzales) and a more staunch Conservative (beats me). Of course since he is bent on getting Gonzales in anyways, he wouldn’t really be slitting his wrists to play nice with the Dems, so looks like a win-win for Bush on this.

This part of the Post story I found humorous:

The White House presumes that Democrats will fight anyone it nominates and found reinforcement for this view in comments by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) overheard on his mobile telephone while riding a train to New York. “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this,” Schumer was reported saying on the Drudge Report Web site.

Even overheard conversation on a cell phone can make its way into mainstream papers like the Post. That’s funny. I should just start walking around DC and keep my ears open. Maybe more people will start visiting my blog if I start posting juicy overheard statements.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2005 at 11:40 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.