Wait, what makes Roberts the guy?

Speculation on Gen. Hayden from ABC's The Note:

Those with a sense of the long game will glance at the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Note [sic] the following names: DeWine, Lott, Snowe, and Hagel, and realize that, even with those names, it's all about the Chair — if Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts is for Hayden, game over.

Well Pat Roberts has a history of covering up and carrying water for President Bush and is likely to support Hayden. But even his most obvious ally on the committee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, has said that "The fact that [Hayden] is part of the military today would be a problem." DeWine, I think, lacks the spine (or the political future) to dissent from the Bush administration on this or any other substantive issue, but Lott, Hagel and especially Snowe have shown willingness to go off the reservation.

Here is the full list of Senate Intelligence Committee members; here is the House equivalent. Republicans are more heavily favored in the House, but there the committee chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) has already come out against Hayden. Consider the long game: Hayden's closest ties are to the phenomenally unpopular Rumsfeld and Cheney, the president is at 32% and it is an election year. So, uh, why exactly should we assume that Roberts holds all the cards?