Unless you’ve been living in an ice cave somewhere in Siberia, you know that President Trump created a firestorm over the weekend with an executive order aimed at securing the nation. While many in-the-know say it’s completely reasonable and legal, it was, nonetheless, arguably inartfully written and released. The result was (astroturfed?) chaos at airports nationwide where protesters staged sit-ins and blocked traffic, angering many travelers. So ever the media manipulator, Trump has pushed up the announcement of his pick for SCOTUS from a planned Thursday statement to Tuesday evening. So who’s left on the shortest of the short list? Reportedly, the frontrunners have been whittled down to these two:

Judge Neil Gorsuch, Colorado, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit since 2006

• Graduate of Columbia University (class of ’88)
• Earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law in 1991
• Between 1991 and 1992, clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• From 1993-1994, clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy
• In 2006, received an “unanimously well qualified” rating from the American Bar Association
• Some have said Gorsuch is a “carbon copy” of Justice Scalia, with SCOTUSblog noting that the parallels in writings and judicial philosophy between the two are “downright eerie”

Judge Thomas Hardiman, Pittsburgh, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

• First in his family to attend college, attending the University of Notre Dame
• He earned his Law Degree from Georgetown University Law Center, which he financed by driving a taxi
• Has become known as an originalist, particularly with regard to the Second Amendment and gun rights
• He supports the death penalty
• Favors rolling back restrictions on campaign finance
• Has not issued any ruling on abortion

You can read more about both men here and here.

Trump likely to name 1 of 2 judges to Supreme Court https://t.co/G6FWsCGPrt @FredLucasWH @DailySignal #Gorsuch #Hardiman #Sykes #Pryor

— Ken McIntyre (@KenMac55) January 30, 2017

In the meantime, while we await President Trump’s announcement Tuesday evening, here’s the man whose seat has been empty since his untimely death last year, advising us on how to pick a justice, and on consensus building:

The gaping cavern this man’s death has left can never be truly filled.

Call me a hopeless skeptic, but I think moving the announcement up by two days is more about Trump changing the media focus from the controversial executive order on travel restrictions to Trump’s first Supreme Court nomination. And given that this latest EO is already seeing lawsuits filed, he’s going to need a fully-seated Supreme Court if he wants a definitive resolution to what may eventually land in their laps. Let’s hope he keeps his promise and nominates a fitting replacement to the late Justice Scalia, one who understands that the Constitution, and our laws, mean what they say, and not what the nominee wants them to say. Far too many justices have done the latter in recent years, the twisting of the law in order to uphold ObamaCare being a prime example.

Justice Scalia has gargantuan shoes to fill, and no one short of a bold, unapologetic originalist, in the tradition of the irreplaceable Antonin Scalia, will suffice. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin’s demands for a “moderate,” and promises of a filibuster regardless of the qualifications and quality of the nominee, be damned, because We the People spoke loud and clear on November 8th, and we told Mr. Schumer and the obstructionist Dems that it will not be they who select Scalia’s successor. The question is: will the Senate Majority Leader employ the so-called nuclear option, or will Mitch McConnell convince a handful of Democrats to put their country first and fill Scalia’s seat without delay?