Clara - you've summed up the topic very nicely.

I once took a course on argumentation - and one of the ideas that I took away from it was that a sucessful argument had to possess both facts and emotions. (Gosh - I think there was a third element, but this class was 15 years ago )

Anyway, debates or debators tend to unravel when they don't remember this. We've seen this when the flamer resorts to nothing but spewing facts or venting emotion. Then the smart-ass elements (including myself ) just post funny things and mock them, but they never get it.