Thanks for all the crying e-mails. Here’s the last one I’ll post. The consensus of e-mailers is that it is OK for public men to cry in public, so long as 1) it’s sincere; 2) it’s something really momentous. Fair enough. Kerry certainly fails the second test and very likely the first. E-mail:

“You realize that WFB has defended crying in public on several occasions?

You may want to check out his post-Muskie column. I believe that in

Macbeth, on being informed of the murder of his family, Macduff tears up

and is told to take it like a man. He says that first he must feel it

like a man. Which points to the distinction that I think should be made:

Most of our public crying isn’t an excess of emotion, it’s a calculated

simulacrum of emotion.”