Conservative = Reprieve?

Here's an interesting piece suggesting that the hearings for John Roberts are serving as a temporary political "reprieve" for President Bush.

It notes that "[Democrats]'ll probably lose on Roberts himself, because perhaps a dozen or more Democrats (especially centrists from red states) may vote for him in the end, because Roberts appears to be broadly acceptable to the public."

In the next paragraph, the story concedes,

In the words of John Maltese, a Georgia-based political analyst who follows confirmation battles: "Bush won the election, and people generally believe that presidents have the right to pick a nominee they agree with. Yes, Roberts is a conservative, but what else would people expect from the Bush administration?

The piece then goes on to discuss the relative probabilities of Bush picking either a moderate or conservative for the next seat. Given the foregoing quote about what people "expect" from the Bush administration and the piece's discussion of the importance of the President holding his base, why on earth would Bush pick a moderate?

Especially when polls show that the public is on to the political nature of the charges levelled at Supreme Court nominees, that a plurality don't believe in a "living Constitution" and that most believe that the Senate can't do the job in a bipartisan and fair manner.

By all this logic, if the relatively noncontroversial John Roberts nomination is a brief political reprieve for the President -- shifting the discussion from areas where many don't agree with him to an area where many do -- just think of the lengthier political reprieve the President would get while the Senate fights it out over a Luttig or Jones nomination.