Talkathon Over ... nothing changes. Oh, Sen. Zell Miller ("D") made an ass out of himself, comparing the effort against Justice Janice Rogers Brown to a lynching, but his support for the re-election of President Bush (like come on man! Sen. Lieberman is running!) made him persona non grata to many Democrats anyway. In the end, it is like the Republicans made themselves look foolish, given they again failed to get a cloture vote and the whole thing looked liked a staged waste of time. The big show of bringing out cots beforehand suggested as much:

"Republicans very much wanted the cots [which in the end were not really unused], with their implicit message of physical discomfort and commitment. On Wednesday, in the presence of a large press contingent, they had 10 cots installed in the Strom Thurmond Room, named for the South Carolina senator who in 1957 famously held the floor single-handedly for 24 hours 18 minutes to oppose a civil rights bill, a record still unmatched."

I also do not think any reminder of Strom Thurmond in this context was a good thing, though again, the conservative sorts this whole thing was primarily meant to satisfy might have appreciated the symbolism. For those just annoyed at the Democrats getting a small victory by blocking the nominations (something Republicans used to do quietly via the now revoked power to hold up nominations in committee), having to stay around for forty or so hours while the Democrats repeatedly railed against them, probably did not seem worth it given the net result.