As most really good actors know. You connect what you've rehearsed to what you really feel, and that's how you wind up with a genuine moment like Biden's, vs. the horrible "say it ain't so Joe" moment, which flubbed because it was delivered with absolutely no conviction (largely because it was rushed and not deployed in the right place rhetorically, I suspect). It was clear that, yes, Biden has probably done the choke up thing in speeches before and yet, also, he was calling up a very real emotion nonetheless.

Did anyone else find her back-patting of her infant creepily mechanic? I don't know way, something about the way she was doing that just seemed like "hey look I'm so motherly" vs. a real gesture of affection or comfort. 'Course, I'm biased and I'll admit that. And I'm also extremely impressed (or mystified) how the McCain Palin team are able to get that infant to be so non-responsive in contexts where he really ought to be balling his little head off.

I also find it horribly tacky and fake and high school debate team-y ("shout out" to my fellow former state debaters!) when she drops the volume of her voice a bit too suddenly to make a point and sound more serious and passionate; it worked once or twice but, as with many of her rhetorical shortcomings, what was initially effective lost impact through overuse during the 90-mins.

I do not, however, find Palin's emotional out-of-touch-ness in this debate to be proof positive that her heart is two sizes to small. It takes a real mastery of material and emotion to be able to stay grounded, focused, and aware in a stressful and unfamiliar situation. It's not unusual for someone to plow over another's poignant moment in a context like that. Then again, she might have been purposefully rushing past it, acting like she didn't notice the moment, in the hope that the rest of us might not notice it either. Or she might have just felt like the moment was a scripted one (see above) and not wanted to dignify it with an empathetic response. In any case, I do think it was a strategic blunder. Just not necessarily a tell on the state of the woman's soul (plenty of other reasons to worry about that).

I hate it when women appeal to the "I'm a mom so how could you understand" thing, like somehow that gives them special insight into love and commitment and whathaveyou that fathers don't have. It's a sexist load of b.s. that makes me second guess any desire to become a mother myself. I hate it almost as much as the whole "if women ruled the world, everything would be so much better and more peaceful ... blah blah blah." Hooray for Biden for speaking up like he did.

That whole "white flag of defeat" line just sounded so Vietnam-era to me. Defeat and victory are not viable concepts in the conflict we face today because our objective keeps changing and our enemy is an abstract noun. And the troops do not, contrary to some expectations, dissolve into pools of demoralized goo when our leaders discuss what is going on in realistic terms.

In so many ways, our leaders are re-fighting a long-ago war by proxy with the blood of younger generations.

Unearned wealth being Cheney's primary source of income as well. (Underhanded, though, that's a different story).

Sorry, couldn't help it.