If you didn't make it to the end of the debate, you missed what I think was Barrack Obama's finest moment, and I'm happy to say, the topic was education. Obama said this:

"But there's one last ingredient that I just want to mention, and that's parents. We can't do it just in the schools. Parents are going to have to show more responsibility. They've got to turn off the TV set, put away the video games, and, finally, start instilling that thirst for knowledge that our students need."

I have never before heard a politician speak about education like that. Yes, Obama is adept at political/lawyer-ese, he wouldn't be where he is without that skill, but occasionally he will dip into straightforward, no-nonsense, plain talk, and not the phoney "you betcha" Palin brand, but the real stuff. This plainspoken sincerity is one of characteristics I most admire about Obama.

But why does that passage stand out to me as the finest moment? For one, it contains truth: Parents have a tremendous role to play in the educations of their children. Far too many parents take no responsibility for their chidren's learning, take no measures to guide them, prod and push them, to take their learning seriously.

Another reason, and the reason that I find most telling about Obama's character, is that it shows he knows what it means to be a parent. It shows that he is actively involved in the upbringing of his own two girls. It shows that he is a good father. I would guess the Obama household is run, much like his campaign, like a well-oiled machine. I would guess that Obama's daughters don't see a milisecond of television before their homework is done.

I can't imagine George W. Bush, John McCain, or even Bill Clinton, saying anything like that; I can't imagine any of them took any sort of active, meaningful role in what their children did after school. We are talking about a special breed of person here, the kind of person with an ego large enough to pursue presidential power, and most people don't get there by putting their families first. Sacrifices have to be made.

And surely Obama has those same power-hungry traits, but in that comment about parenting, Obama showed me, convinced me, that he's found a way to seek that power without putting his family in the backseat. He showed me that he is a real parent who loves his children and teaches them to value their education. He showed me he cares.

It doens't sound like much. It doesn't have the "Joe Plumber" soundbyteability, and it certainly won't be mentioned on CNN or Good Morning America, and that is a shame. In that moment, Obama made me feel proud that I don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils this go-around. Obama the parent is exactly the kind of person I want to see in the White House.