Jokes about people being from central casting aside, the newly unveiled Pirro kids absolutely meet expectations. There's the overachieving daughter with the vengeful smile and the glum "yes, you are getting a haircut" son. What's weird is that beyond the normal family photo op, they were really at Tuesday's Pirro fund-raiser to offer an endorsement of their mom. By the look on young Alex's face, perhaps the appearances were conceded to only after complex negotiations — "Okay, fine, you can go to the Tool concert and I'll overlook your bong if you do me this one favor."

It's a similar but much sadder version of Howard Dean's "family support" moment in the 2004 presidential primary. To prove his wife, Judy, cared that he was running for president, Dean had to produce her at an Iowa rally. That moment — an early sign of Dean's ultimate unelectability — offered a progressive vision of the political family, an apolitical spouse reluctant to set aside her life and craft a flattering public persona she saw as potentially inauthentic. The Pirros broke a rockier patch of ground, but unlike another New York Republican who flubbed his kidsploitation moment yesterday, the Pirros did it faux-triumphantly. And they did so as one. Minus Dad, of course, who was probably at Scores.