TSC Pick 'Em: Luttig or Alito

The buzz has President Bush paring his Supreme Court pick to two: Michael Luttig or Samuel "Scalito" Alito. Announcement is rumored to come later today or tomorrow.

More from TPM Cafe and SCOTUS Blog. Good analysis from the latter:

Looming questions are whether the Democrats will mount a filibuster, whether that would cause them to lose some of their own more conservative members who are uncomfortable with judicial filibusters, and whether the Senate's Republican leadership would try to force through a new rule forbidding judicial filibusters -- invoking the so-called "nuclear option" that probably would bring the Senate to a standstill.

If the Senate approved Alito or Luttig, either probably would become closely aligned on the Court with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Since either of them is probably more conservative than Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and definitely more conservative than Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, it would remain uncertain whether a solid new five-Justice majority would form to achieve the goal of the President and his conservative followers to bring about what might look very much like a conservative judicial revolution.

More from the Chicago Tribune, which is out front on the story, here.