Acting lessons

I don't know if it's because "awards season" is nigh, but there sure are a lot of acclaim in the press for the supposed "acting performances" of our public figures these days, whether it's Roger Clemens ability to "appear angry" in a news conference or Hillary Clinton's new-found ability to "cry on cue."

In any case, curious thing seems to have happened on the way to the New Hampshire primary. I suspect a lot of voters stopped worrying about what the press and the pundits thought* of Clinton's "tearful meltdown" the other day, and instead stopped to actually listen to what she said.

"Some people think elections are a game. They think it's about who's up and who's down. But it's about our country."

Maybe she'd just been waiting for someone to ask her how she maintains her hair style through the rigors of campaigning to deliver that message, but it doesn't really matter. She was talking about the idiots on the bus and in the opinion columns who think this is all just a race of pantomime horses. Voters (maybe lots of female voters) heard her. The press didn't, and don't expect their hearing to get any better in the next few weeks and months.

[As an aside, I wonder if all the time spent in campaign events taking place in the high school gyms of Iowa and New Hampshire is what leads the press to really believe this is all about running for class president.]

Anyway, great job by Clinton, and despite his "staggering loss" by a couple of percentage points, Obama is still in the contest. The next month should be exciting and should make for an even stronger Democratic nominee when all's said and done.

* And wouldn't we all love to see Heather's alternative column -- the one where she writes how New Hampshire voters can't stand to see a woman blubber, as she quotes (as she always does) Tracy to Hepburn in the classic study in misogyny, "Adam's Rib," “Here we go again, the old juice. Guaranteed heart melter. A few female tears, stronger than any acid.”