After three days of perfectly predictable Senate hearings, Sonia Sotomayor has emerged entirely unscathed and well on her way towards becoming the third women to ever sit on the US Supreme Court. The post-Bork dance was scripted for all sides well in advance and just about everybody turned in a serviceable performance with a few noteworthy exceptions:

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota)

It was practically his first day as a Senator (he got a late start courtesy of the razor-thin margin of victory last fall and the ensuing lawsuits) but Al Franken jumped in feet first. While every Senator from both parties is working off a party-written playbook and is assigned questions and subjects to push the greater cause, Franken managed the task with interest and aplomb and — no surprise — good humor. On a panel stuffed with stuffy old white men, Franken stood out as a sort of normal person. He didn’t take himself too seriously and gave us a pretty good idea of who Sonia Sotomayor is without having to resort to the pathetic softball questions of his Democratic colleagues. Methinks Franken is going to be a pretty good addition to the august body.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Crazyville Oklahoma)

Senator Coburn is a doctor from Oklahoma who did more to help the Democrats in these hearings than even Texan Jon Cornyn (who stepped out of central casting for the role of the Senator who just stepped off the course at his whites-only country club) or Alabaman Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (no further comment needed). Those guys are caricatures of the modern Republican Party — old, Southern, white, conservative — while Coburn is more in the Glenn Beck mode. Coburn parried with Sotomayor about abortion and guns in a way that was pure culture war. But it was his “you got some ‘splainin’ to do” joke that was the icing on the cake. Whether it was offensive or not was almost besides the point. It made Coburn and the Republicans look like they were making fun of Latinos. For a party that has essentially lost all support within the fastest-growing demographic in the US it was yet another reminder of how very very far it has to climb.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R D-Pennsylvania)

Senator Specter loooooves Supreme Court nominee hearings. Especially the part where he gets to hear himself talk and ask seemingly probing, important questions. Specter also loves to be the odd man out. The Republican who might vote with the Democrats. The Democrat who might vote with the Republicans. It’s all so very endearing but it’s not hard to figure what his game is this time around as he faces a tough fall election. Make that two fall elections. Since switching parties this spring Specter has gone from facing an almost certain loss in a Republican primary to a tough-but-winnable Democratic primary against two-term Congressman Joe Sestak and a potentially nasty general election against far-right former Congressman Pat Toomey. Specter can’t win without Democrats and independents. With the support of President Obama and Veep Biden plus a ton of cash the Democratic side of things probably won’t be too hard. But getting independents in PA means Specter has to show his, well, independence and that’s what his tough prosecutor act was all about.

Sonia Sotomayor

Roberts and Alito played their parts to a tee during their confirmation hearings, answering almost nothing while appearing to be genuine, reflective, and intellectually open. On that score (the only one that matters in these things nowadays) Sotomayor was their equal. Or maybe their better. Her elucidation of fundamental Constitutional law was really quite brilliant in its simplicity. She dodged and ducked without looking like she was dodging and ducking and she appeared the embodiment of cool. Like Obama in the campaign, nothing ruffled her and she was in control the entire time. Should she serve a long time on the court it seems likely that she will become a driving force — the liberal version of the late Chief Justice Rehnquist. We would say Antonin Scalia but Sotomayor seems too smart and modest to allow herself to become an ineffectual partisan flamethrower.