"It was like one of those perfect flickers of sadness that won Helen Mirren an Oscar for 'The Queen.'"

Robin Givhan on Hillary's show of emotion. Yeah, I keep trying to guess what excellent actress is coaching Hillary on her vocal inflections — which have become quite good. I hear the voice of a specific actress. Not an English one though — the accent would be a calamity — so not Helen Mirren. Somebody more Californian.

Back to Givhan:

Over the past 17 years, Clinton has constructed a public face that is controlled and largely inscrutable....

She never has come across as wounded....

It's no great leap to wonder whether that cracking in her voice yesterday had been self-consciously conjured up. Clinton got teary-eyed? Really? The disbelief might be cynical, but not unreasonable.

How does she convince observers -- those pesky pundits, the annoying media, the relentless bloggers -- that her husky-voiced emotion was real?

Well, as a pesky, relentless, annoying blogger — especially on the subject of Hillary — I'll just say that to ask the question is to give up the game. If she's trying to figure out how to convince us she's real, she's not being real.

"Game," you say?

"Some people think elections are a game, lots of who's up or who's down. It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. And it's really about all of us together."

I confess to being one of those people who think elections are a game. Of course, they have serious consequences and affect the real lives of many people, but getting yourself elected is still a game, and it's one that she's trying to play well. And she's losing. She tried to win, and when she found herself losing, she started asserting that for her — unlike those other, shallow people — it wasn't a game. But that was her move... in the game.