With the make-or-break Super Tuesday primaries just 24 hours away, two breaking stories suggest that candidacies may be made or broken by media interpretation of the trivial. In Connecticut, Hillary Clinton once again teared up at a campaign event. And over the weekend, a questioner at a St. Louis Clinton rally reprised an earlier McCain supporter's faux pas by asking about "Bush the bastard." No doubt, the analyses of tears and expletives on the Clinton campaign are about to begin.
Hillary's Misty Eyes II episode in New Haven will no doubt fuel speculation and conspiracy theories. Occam's Razor, the notion that the simplest explanation is the usually the best one, would suggest that Hillary Clinton actually was emotional about her return the Yale Child Study Center where she worked during law school in the 1970's. As the Chicago Tribune detailed:

Penn Rhodeen, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up, leading Clinton's eyes to fill with tears, which she wiped out of her left eye. At the time, Rhodeen was saying how proud he was that sheepskin-coat, bell-bottom-wearing young woman he met in 1972 was now running for president.
"Well, I said I would not tear up; already we're not exactly on the path," Clinton said with emotion after the introduction.

But coming less than a month after what some saw as Hillary's decisive tears in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, pundits will look for meaning. Was Senator Clinton pandering to women voters? Is her propensity to choke up directly proportional to the strength of Barack Obama's candidacy?
Of course, she could have just been tired and genuinely moved. But when politics is theater, media conventional wisdom doesn't make much room for basic humanity.
When it comes to basic humanity, it shouldn't be too much to ask the candidates to keep their events family friendly. So when a woman at a Clinton campaign stop referred to "Bush the bastard," the candidate should have scolded the questioner - and the cheering audience - for the lack of civility. As the Los Angeles Times recounts, that isn't what happened:

One elderly woman rose and was asking the Democratic candidate about a rumored economic union among the United States, Canada and Mexico that is widely discussed, feared and abhorred among conspiracy fanciers. The woman said the president planned to implement the secret agreement in 2010.
Then the woman called the president "Bush the bastard."
The Democratic crowd immediately roared its approval. Sen. Clinton nodded her head slightly and smiled. Then, she proceeded to...answer the question, saying "there's not a lot of truth to it."

All of which means that Americans are in for 24 hours of the "Clinton double-standard" meme. That is, when a Republican supporter referred to Hillary as "the bitch," those on the left decried John McCain's refusal to denounce the questioner's inappropriate behavior. (While he claimed his "respect" for Senator Clinton, he also called the supporter's "an excellent question.") Unsurprisingly, the LA Times is already noting that "it'll be interesting to see if Clinton's silent assent to that crude comment arouses as much criticism and controversy." No doubt, all the leading candidates will be asked to comment on the Clinton campaign's supposed ruthless streak.
These should, of course, be fleeting stories of no moment. People cry. People also ask rude, stupid questions that have no place in the public square. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and all candidates left, right and center should say so. And then we should let it go.
But instead, for the next day we'll be treated to 24/7 analysis of campaign tears and expletives.