WASHINGTON  “I think through these proceedings the American people have gotten to know you,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy told Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday, excusing her from her Supreme Court confirmation hearing after four days of testimony.

Plenty of legal observers across the ideological spectrum disagreed. Despite some 583 questions from senators amid wall-to-wall news media coverage, her hearing may prove to be as notable for what the country did not learn about her as much as for what it did.

When asked what the hearings revealed about Judge Sotomayor’s legal views, the Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe, a longtime adviser to President Obama who supports her confirmation, had a simple reply: “Nothing.”

And M. Edward Whelan III, the president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center and a critic of Judge Sotomayor, said she simply walked away from her own past controversial statements, and senators failed to get her to say anything of substance.