Despite the Republicans' grandstanding and public relations campaign to stage a 50 + hour debate-athon in the Senate over the Dems blocking some of the more objectionable Bush nominees for lifetime judicial appointments, they failed. Miserably.

The Republicans failed to get the votes they needed to overcome the opposition to Janice Rogers Brown, Carolyn Kuhl and Priscilla Owen.

The three votes followed the Senate's longest nonstop debate since a 57-hour, 24-minute marathon in 1988 over campaign legislation. ....Republicans, who hold a narrow majority, decided to hold the debate after criticism from conservative activists they were not doing enough to take on Democrats.

Democrats said they had simply exercised a constitutional right to "advise and consent" to stop Bush from packing the courts with what they called right-wing ideologues who could not be trusted to uphold civil rights, abortion rights, worker rights and environmental protections. They also noted they had joined Republicans in confirming 168 of Bush's other judicial nominees, to reduce the vacancy rate on the federal bench to less than 5 percent, its lowest level in more than a decade.

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