SCOTUS Watch: More Retirement Rumors

All day today while I've been focused on events in London, rumors have been slowly making their way around the blogosphere and into select portions of the mainstream media that Chief Justice Rehnquist will announce his retirement tomorrow morning. Robert Novak put the tidbit into his column this morning, saying that he'd had "word from court sources that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist will also announce his retirement before the week is over" (i.e. tomorrow). Matt Drudge was soon headlining the story.

The blog BadPolitiks posted at 12:15 this afternoon that a source (the same, the poster writes, who informed them of O'Connor's retirement last week prior to the announcement) informed them that the C.J. will retire tomorrow. Bloggers at RedState also reported that their sources were telling them similar things: Erick Erickson said this afternoon that he had "Senate, White House, and Court" sources all saying that a Rehnquist departure is "imminent."

And as for that "making its way" thing, the liberal DailyKos blog has gotten into the act tonight, with Kos writing " The big DC rumor is that Rehnquist will announce his retirement tomorrow between 10-11 a.m." Raw Story reports that a source has told them that Senate Judiciary Committee staffers have told other staff to prepare for a retirement announcement Friday morning during that same time frame.

Until I get the final word, I don't want to try and analyze "what might happen" scenarios (i.e. appointing one person, elevating a sitting justice to chief and then appointing another judge, etc.). At this point, the rumors are nothing more than that - but since they're making their way out there so prominently I wanted to pass them along.

[Update: Just want to pass along a new rumor that's begun circulating in the last couple of hours. From K.J. Lopez at The Corner: "In the last half hour the new rumor that is keeping political geeks awake: Rehnquist and Stevens resign tomorrow." This seems utterly implausible on its face (why would Stevens retire now?) but I guess we'll have to wait and see. I think a single retirement (i.e. Rehnquist) much more likely, and even that might not be as sure a thing as people seem to be thinking. -- 11:03 p.m.]