(CNN) She certainly wasn't the loudest. (That was Lindsey Graham.) Or the most well-known name among Democrats eyeing 2020. (That was Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.) But Amy Klobuchar, who, like Harris and Booker, is considering a run for the Democratic presidential nomination was, for my money, the single most effective Democratic senator in last week's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. And what's remarkable is that the Minnesota Democrat did it by being, well, not terribly partisan.

When it came time for Klobuchar to ask questions of Kavanaugh, the judge, who has come out throwing 95 mile-per-hour fastballs at the head of, well, everyone, praised her for being fair with him during the previous confirmation hearings -- which came before California professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with allegations that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school in the early 1980s -- an allegation Kavanaugh denies. "I appreciate our meeting together, and I appreciate how you handled the prior hearing, and I have a lot of respect for you," Kavanaugh told Klobuchar.

Klobuchar took Kavanaugh's praise in stride and quickly got down to business. She noted that her father had long battled alcoholism and used that as a segue to ask Kavanaugh about the nature and depth of his own drinking. Here's the key exchange between the two (it's long but important):

KLOBUCHAR: OK. Drinking is one thing, but the concern is about truthfulness, and in your written testimony, you said sometimes you had too many drinks. Was there ever a time when you drank so much that you couldn't remember what happened, or part of what happened the night before?

KAVANAUGH: No, I — no. I remember what happened, and I think you've probably had beers, Senator, and — and so I...

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