The Flop-Sweat Moment, 2013

This is, of course, about Marco Rubio.  New Yorker writer's Ian Crouch found the water-bottle moment and other signs of panic engrossing, as did many others who were watching.  Italics added.

Twitter, which gives quick voice to the American cultural id, was the venue for a flood of mocking and gleeful gut responses. (The best, for my money, came later, from the flop-sweat extraordinaire Albert Brooks: “I didn’t see Marco Rubio’s speech but I just got a residual check.”) Yet the flexing cleverness may have obscured a deeper feeling that we, as seasoned viewers of bland and staged political theatre, had just made an uncomfortable personal connection that we were not expecting, and did not enjoy. ...

... Watching the video for a second time this morning, with the full knowledge of what is to come, the entire thing takes on added drama and weight, which suggests that it may linger not merely as a “Nixon moment” in political history but as a durable Web artifact. Rubio’s body seems locked in a struggle that we know he is sure to lose. If the video makes it across the threshold of a few news cycles of late-night mockery, it will be because of those eyes, which give us, in just a few minutes, a full narrative arc of dread, desperation, decision, and regret. ...IanCrouch, New Yorker