New York’s favorite new congresswoman was impressive after waiting all day to question Michael Cohen. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Until today, I had been skeptical about the hype over new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is, after all, a backbencher from a safe Democratic district in a heavily Democratic state. She won an impressive upset primary victory last year, but is still south of 30 years old and belongs to the small if interesting tribe of self-identified democratic socialists (to which I do not happen to belong). Maybe I don’t spend enough time on social media to understand her mastery of latter-day communications. But I figured she had become a self-perpetuating legend probably resented by her colleagues who spent years toiling for a tiny fraction of the attention she’s attracted.

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But at the end of a long, tedious day in the House Oversight Committee marked by clumsy questioning of Michael Cohen by Democrats, and shrieking hostility to the witness from Trump-loving Republicans, AOC (as she is universally known in the political universe — you know, like FDR and JFK) put in perhaps the single most impressive appearance of the hearing.

Check it out:

She was crisp, succinct, and very focused on raising some previously undiscussed potential criminal liability issues for Trump that Cohen’s testimony suggested (e.g, insurance fraud), including several where the hot-button issue of Trump’s missing tax returns might be germane. I wasn’t the only viewer who was impressed; so was the fact-checker from the Washington Post, another person unlikely to be excessively biased toward AOC:

Some lessons that other lawmakers could learn from @AOC's good questioning of Cohen: a) follow-up on previously asked questions that still need answers b) be precise and detailed and c) avoid much grandstanding. You might elicit news. — Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) February 27, 2019

Indeed, she was the opposite of a grandstander. True, she’s lucky to be the rare member of Congress who will get attention no matter what she does. But this time, she earned it, and if nothing else it’s a solid indication that she hasn’t let her early celebrity go to her head.