"For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes"

[dajoki]

WP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101577.html?referrer=email

For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes

By Dana Milbank

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

It's only 6:17 a.m. Central time, and President Bush is already facing his second question of the day about Karl Rove's legal troubles. "Does it worry you," NBC's Matt Lauer is asking him at a construction-site interview in Louisiana, that prosecutors "seem to have such an interest in Mr. Rove? Bush blinks twice. He touches his tongue to his lips. He blinks twice more. He starts to answer, but he stops himself. "I'm not going to talk about the case," Bush finally says after a three-second pause that, in television time, feels like a commercial break.

Only the president's closest friends and family know (if anybody does) what he's really thinking these days, during Katrina woes, Iraq violence, conservative anger over Harriet Miers, and legal trouble for Bush's top political aide and two congressional GOP leaders. Bush has not been viewed up close; as he took his eighth post-Katrina trip to the Gulf Coast yesterday, the press corps has accompanied him only once, because the White House says logistics won't permit it. Even the interview on the "Today" show was labeled "closed press."

But this much could be seen watching the tape of NBC's broadcast during Bush's 14-minute pre-sunrise interview, in which he stood unprotected by the usual lectern. The president was a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts. Bush has always been an active man, but standing with Lauer and the serene, steady first lady, he had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.

The fidgeting clearly corresponded to the questioning. When Lauer asked if Bush, after a slow response to Katrina, was "trying to get a second chance to make a good first impression," Bush blinked 24 times in his answer. When asked why Gulf Coast residents would have to pay back funds but Iraqis would not, Bush blinked 23 times and hitched his trousers up by the belt.

[ananda]

1. Good

I hope he squirms and feels the heat.

Really, he should just get outta the kitchen.

[thereismore]

2. Dana Milbank is a media hoe. n/t

[Bucky]

3. Yes, clearly he was shilling for the "pugs" when he counted the blinking

No way this reporter could have known many people are aware that repetitive blinking is a sign of lying.

[dajoki]

8. i thought that was common knowledge...

blinking and lying

[thereismore]

10. He wrote a disrespectful article on John Conyers' DSM "forum",

and I won't forget that. There were other pieces like that too. Of course I enjoyed the latest piece on * eye-blinking, but I am highly suspicious of Milbank. I see him sometimes on Countdown, I don't like him very much.

[npincus]

4. how come he doesn't mention the grinding jaw?

I find that to be the most frequent and prominent of all of his bodily tics and jerks.

[Vanje]

5. Chimp in the headlights

[MindPilot]

6. of course he was nervous; he is frightened by working people

Bush was surrounded by people who use tools, build things, and actaully know how to turn a pile of lumber into a house.

Real people doing real work with their brains actually connected to their hands.

It's probably something Bush has never been that close to before. I heard on the radio that he actually wore a WORK GLOVE!! He will need to wash down a handful of Xanax with a bottle of Beam after that.

Good thing I wasn't there; I'm sometimes not so accurate with a nailgun.

[dajoki]

9. nightmares for W

[MindPilot]

7. self-delete -- accidental double post eom