Obama's infomercial was Capraesque, and I mean that as a compliment. Fortunately for Barack, he's wiser to the ways of Washington than Jefferson Smith was in Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," but no less idealistic. I've been voting since 1976, and this is the first time I've felt inspired by a candidate, confident that this is the right leader at the right time.

In season 2's second episode, when Peggy tries to get out of going to church by saying "I'm capable of making my own decisions," her sister Anita snipes "State of New York didn't think so. The doctors didn't think so." So the state of New York declared Peggy to be an unfit mother. The tip-off that Anita is rearing Peggy's baby as her own comes when Peggy's leaving, and Anita asks, "Aren't you going to say goodnight?" Peggy looks on from the bedroom doorway at a baby in a crib.

When Peggy eventually shows up in church in a subsequent episode, she's handed her "nephew" to hold, and her discomfort at the physical contact is palpable.

Further on, Anita's confession to Father Gill, in which she can't contain her resentment of Peggy, reveals that the career girl gave birth out of wedlock. During an Easter egg hunt featuring Peggy's "nephew" crawling on the church lawn, Father Gill acknowledges that he's in on the secret when he hands Peggy an egg "for the little one."

As for Betty's unplanned third pregnancy, Don must be the father. He was only missing in action for three weeks, and she didn't actually commit adultery until after she found out she was pregnant. (That leaves out Arthur from the stables.) Her comments about the bad timing related to their separation. She didn't want any excuse to take Don back. She did use her condition to even the score with Don after he returned from California, and didn't have to worry about getting pregnant during her extramarital fling since she was already knocked up. Don may have wondered about paternity, and she may keep him guessing as a power play, but he knew he didn't dare bring it up after how he'd betrayed her with his serial affairs.

Excellent and insightful wrap-up by Heather.

What a handy phrase. Puts me in mind of Katharine Hepburn's portrayal of madcap heiress Susan Vance in "Bringing Up Baby."

I wasn't expecting much from this silly movie, but I found myself constantly laughing out loud at its absurdities. And isn't there a throwaway line where Reilly or Ferrell says he's got to get home to catch Dane Cook on Pay-Per-View? Now THAT's funny.

Zacharek nails it again!

"-- and the way the mind refuses to age along with it..." Ouch, and well put. That's the bittersweet taste of aging, all right.

Anonymous is unaware that Maeve Binchy adapted her novel for the screen with Cynthia Cidre. Gillies MacKinnon directed the 2005 movie starring Andie MacDowell as Marilyn and Olivia Williams as Ria.

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I agree with deering that the schlock served up by Ephron and Meyers is "worse than the typical Hollywood rom-com formula." Why must their heroines be so whiny? There's always a lot of bitching and moaning leading up to a big crying scene just before reuniting with the "age-appropriate mate" and getting hitched. All that water just warps and weakens these cardboard characters. Could you see Barbarba Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Rosalind Russell, or Irene Dunne put through these humiliating paces? Would you tolerate anybody denigrating their comedies as chick flicks?

I long for the days when screenwriters could distinguish between ridicule and comedy. You'd think that Ephron, with her screwball pedigree (her parents were a rom-com writing duo), would do the genre justice, but her female characters sink into depressing stereotype rather than rise above it. They echo the character she based on herself, Rachel in "Heartburn." I disliked the book, and find the movie unwatchable. What a waste of Meryl Streep's talents. Rachel is such a ninny, but so are the rest of Ephron's and Meyers' crybaby creations. Why would anyone want to spend time with any of these shallow women? They aren't even fun shallow women. And the spirit of fun is another thing that goes missing in these insulting movies.

It saddens me that Ephron and Meyers haven't produced any rom-com heroines to equal those played by Stanwyck, Hepburn, Lombard, Russell, or Dunne, much less designed vehicles suitable to carry them in style. When these complicated women (nod to Mick LaSalle) were jilted, they didn't break down, they got mad, and then they got even!

Lubitsch, Sturges, Hawks, Cukor, and McCarey were directors who liked women, and felt no need to make their heroines patsies. I don't see anyone in the current crop of directors that I'd elevate to the level of those past legends, but Kevin Smith in "Chasing Amy" and Gerard Stembridge in "About Adam" respect their heroines, and don't serve up the same pabulum, they take chances by twisting the rom-com genre.

I'm pleased to see Stephanie Zacharek address what she aptly describes as the tyranny of the last couple decades' commercial rom-coms in this review. I'll wait to see this fresh piece of dreck on cable -- the trailer makes me cringe. I hate how the title reference one of the great comedies of the 1930s, one that actually transcends its genre. If you haven't read Zacharek's take on the depth and artistry of 1938's "Holiday," do yourself a favor. It's in Salon's archives.