The week that was

Lessons learned about democracy and politics from the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearing -- both your take and ours. Here are ours:
 
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. President Barack Obama won the White House and Democrats expanded their hold on Congress last fall. That made for an easy path for the Democratic president's nominee. Sotomayor's chances were never in serious danger. Obama wouldn't have nominated someone who had major flaws that would lead to failure. And, Democrats now have a 60-vote majority -- enough to thwart a GOP filibuster. Things would have been much different had John McCain won the White House. His close friend, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, acknowledged as much, telling Sotomayor: "My inclination is that elections matter."
 
RACE IS STILL EXPLOSIVE. Sotomayor showed that people who have national ambitions must watch what they say over the course of their careers, lest their words come back to haunt them. "Wise Latina" -- a phrase Sotomayor says was used to inspire -- became fodder for Republicans to suggest that this Hispanic nominee was a racist. The reverse discrimination case of the firefighters in New Haven, Conn., pushed race even more to the forefront of this hearing and stoked passions among people of every political persuasion and ethnicity.

SENATORS MUST WATCH THEIR TONGUES. The cameras are always rolling. And senators are always in front of them. In this age of sound-bite journalism, in particular, that can make for a politically perilous combination. Context can be misconstrued. Tone can be lost. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., took some heat for a Ricky Riccardo riff. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., swore, kind of. And that kind of stuff can singe.

THE PUBLIC PROCESS ISN'T SO PUBLIC. From start to finish, the hearing is scripted. The questions senators asked, the answers Sotomayor gave, the testimony witnesses gave -- everything was planned beforehand. And even the audience was skewed to the script. Most people in the room were part of the show -- journalists, senators, aides, White House officials, lobbyists. Chairman Patrick Leahy noted that more than 2,000 members of the public attended the hearings. He didn't say they were permitted into the hearing room on a rolling basis -- and could stay in the room for only 20 minutes.
 
IT'S ALL ABOUT POLITICS. Senators had one eye on the witness table -- and one eye on their home states. It's a good bet that everything they said was intended for their audience back home -- constituents who will vote on whether they keep their jobs or not. Both Republicans and Democrats were mindful -- painfully so, it seemed -- to watch their politics, particularly with Hispanics. They make up the fastest-growing minority group in the country, and, as such, pack a politically powerful punch. So, senators of all stripes walked a political tightrope, as they tried to make their points without offending Hispanics

Those are our thoughts. We asked your take on Twitter, and you responded.

That's coming right up.

-Liz Sidoti, AP reporter, politics.