The talker

No hardball questions from Sen. Charles Schumer to Sonia Sotomayor. No surprise. Schumer's her home-state senator and "sherpa" or handler on Capitol Hill.

Some background on Schumer: He wants you to call him "Chuck." He's a talker, and one of the jokes around Capitol Hill is that the most dangerous place in town is between Schumer and a microphone. He's also a very smart, very astute political operator. He chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last year as they reached a near filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. (Two of the Democratic votes are actually independents.) He also is largely credited with pushing Democrats to filibuster President George W. Bush's lower-court judicial nominees, which started the judicial filibuster wars that ended with the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

And it's his time in the spotlight, after having to work with Hillary Rodham Clinton as the other New York senator. Here's what the Los Angeles Times had to say.

-Jesse J. Holland, AP reporter, Supreme Court