According to numerous sources, President Barack Obama’s pick to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s seat will be Merrick Garland. But we’ll have the details after the presser ends.

Until then, enjoy:

UPDATE: Yep, he picked Merrick Garland, 63, long considered by those inside and outside the Beltway as a “moderate”.

In his stump speech, Obama strategically and savvily mentioned a bunch of things in hopes that the only obstacle left in Garland becoming an official justice of SCOTUS and getting the robe, banging the gavel and the whole kit and caboodle — GOP members of Congress — would be less of one after his announcement. One of them was staunch Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who supported Garland in past nominations and even once called him a “fine man”. The other was his key role as a prosecutor in one of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil, the Oklahoma City bombing, which the former Washington lawyer has called the most important thing he’s ever done in his life.

More from the Washington Post:

In announcing his choice in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he followed “a rigorous and comprehensive process” and that he reached out to members of both parties, legal associations and advocacy groups to gauge opinions from “across the spectrum.”

He said Garland “is widely recognized not only as one of America’s sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, modesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence.”

With Garland standing by his side, Obama said choosing a replacement for the late justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly last month, is “not a responsibility that I take lightly.”

“I said I would take this process seriously, and I did,” the president said. “I chose a serious man and an exemplary judge.”

“To find someone with such a long career in public service, marked by complex and sensitive issues, to find someone who just about everyone not only respects but genuinely likes, that is rare,” Obama said. “And it speaks to who Merrick Garland is, not just as lawyer but as a man.”

“This is the greatest honor of my life,” Garland said, “other than Lynn agreeing to marry me 28 years ago.”

After the presser, Garland was about to walk out the wrong door, the one directly in back of the podium, but Obama suavely and abruptly boxed the potential justice out like an agile college basketball small forward and steered him toward the correct exit (the door to the left).

SECOND UPDATE: This is interesting …

THIRD UPDATE: If Garland doesn’t get approved by Congress, it’ll be due to petty, petulant senators and representatives like this, acting completely unprofessionally/embarrassing themselves …