The Sotomayor Hearings: "Perry Mason" Had More Drama Than This

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Other than sound bites on the evening news and the natterings of CNN's "Best Political Team on TV" (which apparently Wolf Blitzer is required to tell us every 15 seconds), I haven't paid much attention to the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Why bother? Judge Sotomayor is generally considered a lock to replace Justice David Souter come the first Monday in October, given the majority of Democrats making up the current Senate. These hearings are a mere formality, giving the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee plenty of opportunities to enjoy the sound of their own voices on their way to asking the judge a question.

The answers they've been getting from Sotomayor were mostly on the bland side, which has been par for the course whenever a Supreme Court nominee is on the hot seat. The judge sidestepped queries about how she would rule on controversial topics such as abortion rights, but was a bit more forthcoming when it came to questions about baseball and the 1960s TV series "Perry Mason".

The Republicans on the committee, playing the Hamilton Burger role because they know they don't have the votes to defeat Sotomayor, kept asking her about a comment she made years ago in which she said "a wise Latina woman" could make better decisions than her white male colleagues. The judge appeared to back off from that, saying her ethnicity and gender would not influence her decisions on the High Court.

From all accounts, it sounds as if Sotomayor came through the hearings with flying colors, to the point where some GOP committee members said they might vote for her. If all goes well, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will become the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court. Unless, of course, there's a Paul Drake bringing in last-minute evidence that forces the guilty party to make a dramatic confession on the witness stand. Judge Sotomayor should have watched enough episodes of "Perry Mason" to know that.