So where does that leave us?

NationalJournal.com examined the timelines of all SCOTUS nominations and confirmations going back to the Reagan administration. In that span, the longest a president waited to fill an immediate or imminent vacancy was 87 days: After Justice Byron White announced his retirement in March 1993, it took President Clinton almost three months to nominate Ruth Bader Ginsburg that June. The shortest? No time at all. On June 17, 1986, President Reagan announced Chief Justice Warren Burger's retirement, William Rehnquist's elevation to chief justice and Antonin Scalia's nomination to fill the vacancy.

A speedy nomination is no guarantee of an easy confirmation. In 1987, Reagan was quick out of the gate to nominate Robert Bork to replace Justice Lewis Powell, taking only five days. That ended up being the longest that a Supreme Court seat went unfilled in this period -- Bork's defeat, the short-lived bid of Douglas Ginsburg and a long confirmation process for Anthony Kennedy added up to 222 days.

The average wait for a nomination, including those that went nowhere, is a little over three weeks. We're now upon the 11th day since Souter announced his retirement May 1. History suggests we have more chatter and rumors to wade through before the real debate can get going -- in the Senate's confirmation proceedings.