AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY: How Jeff Flake seized the spotlight in Kavanaugh confirmation.

Flake, after voting to send Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate, asked for a delay of up to a week before the full Senate votes on Kavanaugh, to allow time for an FBI investigation.

In movies, this kind of twist would require a spoiler alert. In breaking news, it was just a stunning development in a story that’s beginning to strain our capacity for stunning developments. “Shocking” was a word networks threw around a lot.

It wasn’t “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” exactly — a lot of social-media wags said Flake just wants it both ways — but it was gripping, nonetheless.

Flake wasn’t around immediately afterward to explain, so it fell to other senators. And Flake was the only subject reporters were asking about.

“Jeff’s a really good guy,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said. “I wouldn’t have done it.”

To be fair, Graham laughed, and so did the reporters around him.

Flake is retiring from the Senate, but no one realistically supposes his political career is over.

I suspect his political future involves a TV news network job as an analyst who explains why Republicans are wrong.