BARRING SOME crazy skeleton running out of her closet with its tailbone on fire, federal appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor will become the first Latina on the U.S. Supreme Court. I feel a little bump of pride.

To you, she is Your Honor. To me, she's So-So from the Bronx. My Home Girl.

"So-So" doesn't describe her ability. If Bronxite Jennifer Lopez is J-Lo, Sotomayor can be So-So.

I am Byko from the Bronx. Like Sotomayor, I come out of poverty and the projects. I even grew up a Yankees fan. (No más. I wear Phillies-red now.)

You had to be tough in parts of the Bronx and, as a result of experience, my worldview may be like So-So's. I believe the strong have a responsibility to protect the weak. How the strong (or the courts) do that is problematic.

What do the strong do about a rogue state like North Korea, or a rogue corporation like Enron?

As a judge, So-So gets high marks, with a caveat about sometimes being too brusque with lawyers. It's not a character defect; it's the Bronx way.

Although slightly lesser than Barack Obama's election as president, So-So's nomination to be a Supreme is historic. She'd be only the third woman, again giving Ruth Bader Ginsburg someone to go to the ladies room with. (Ruth's from Brooklyn.)

So-So's the first nominee to be called - following her best-known decision - the "savior of baseball," for her 1995 ruling ending the strike (in the players' favor).

So-So's latest known decision is the one you'll be hearing the most about.

It's the New Haven, Conn., case in which the city tossed out results of the Fire Department's promotion tests because no African-Americans finished in the money. A split, three-member appeals panel upheld the city's move.

The Libertarian Party blasted Sotomayor's vote, saying that she had given the city a "right to discriminate against white and Hispanic public employees."

Did you catch that? Her ruling hurt Hispanic firefighters. You may disagree with her ruling - I do - but she didn't show "empathy" to her "own."

The White House emphasized her credentials as a corporate attorney (pro-business), as a New York prosecutor (law and order) and highlighted cases in which she wrote an opinion revoking U.S. citizenship for an accused Nazi and another permitting evidence that FBI agents seized in good faith but under a flawed warrant.

All So-So lacks is a tiara, a golden lasso and a glass airplane.

The odds of the Senate confirming her are the same as Jerry Blavat being at Memories in July.

For political cover, she was nominated to the bench by President George H.W. Bush and promoted to the appellate court by President Clinton. Bipartisan. With English and Spanish, bilingual.

She's proof the American Dream is an enduring truth for those who embrace it and work for it.

Democrats will vote for her with relish. Republicans will vote for her with anguish.

The GOP fears that any meaningful opposition will forever screw them with women and Hispanics.

There will be half-hearted confirmation hearings (don't expect to see Arlen quiz her as he did Anita Hill), and conservatives will raise some narrow issues about constitutional law and whether So-So's guided by her heart or her head.

They will make the valid point that the statue of Justice is blindfolded, meaning that judges should rule without regard to a person's color, gender, religion, shoe size or anything else, even "empathy."

You may hear some pulled-out-of-context stuff in coming days to make So-So seem like a cross between Karl Marx and Bernardine Dohrn.

Ignore it. So-So will. It's the Bronx way. *

E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/byko.