CHAPTER 8
Politicians, Pundits,
and Stars:
D in R.E.A.D.
Every time a person is rewarded for a behavior, the behavior becomes entrenched. The toddler shakes her head “no.” It works. She does it again and again. Adults are those children covered in more layers of life. When something works, you keep it in your repertoire and build on it.
When you hit conflict or simply need to influence someone, you revert to a successful model. Some of these behaviors will be conscious and intentional, and others will be adaptors that have worked for so long they become second nature. Here are a few strategy models. Look around you and create your own list based on what you observe, so that it becomes a tool for you to use in the “D,” or decide, of R.E.A.D.
Strategy Models
The intentional or unintentional behavior a person relies on for conflict and influence has a downside that gives you clues to what is really going on in his head: the model is not all encompassing. The supporting body language is often missing. You can detect irregularities. When the model does not work, the person may flounder in attempts to be convincing.
The Holy Warrior
This person creates an image that is beyond reproach by bonding to a Cause. Simply being associated with the Cause assuages his guilt in other areas. If you manage to attack his behavior, he will quickly become indignant—chin up, enunciating more clearly—so that you understand his point of view because, obviously, you must have missed it the first time. He stays on topic, which is the Cause, and off of topics or discussions that raise questions about whether or not he has the knowledge and skills to say what he’s saying. This is commonly used by the moral hijackers among the super-typical, who understand little about the whole issue, but lift themselves to the role of saint for the Cause.
I’m Just a Girl
This is most often used by women in a male-dominated industry. Younger women might also use it successfully against someone who is matronly and self-consumed. The woman can play up the most feminine of her characteristics and emotional (weak) body language to look vulnerable and more feminine. This body language plays on the innate ability to make men more protective and less fierce. She plays up the “I’m just a girl” to get men to either cease attack or influence behavior in some way. Many women have perfected this in personal relationships as well by quietly allowing the men in their lives to believe they are in control.
The Flirt
He or she may rely on a variety of behaviors, and not necessarily sexual ones. In my dictionary, flirting means making emotional contact with someone, and filling the air with energy. It can be done between the same sex or opposite sexes. You know you’ve encountered a flirt when, regardless of how far you are from him physically, he seems close. There is no dead air between the two you. A skilled flirt can connect with dozens or even thousands of people at the same time, with each one certain that the connection is personal. Some politicians do it through speech and some musicians do it through song. A big reason why movie and TV viewers can feel attached to stars is the artificial closeness that the camera creates. The flirt takes your mind off of everything except the interchange. You suspend looking at body language and may not even notice content.
As an interrogator, flirting is a requisite skill. I believe anyone can learn enough to be an expert on any subject in two hours or less. All you need is an understanding of where the issue intersects the person—a skill inherent in flirting. If I can understand what about your profession keeps you up at night, you and I have an emotional connection. You will overlook hygiene, dress, and mannerisms in someone with whom you can identify. After all, when you have that connection, anything negative about that person reflects on you.
There Is Nothing to See Here
This can have several variations, the simplest of which is self-deprecation to the point that others underestimate the person. I use this most effectively when wearing boots, jeans, and a baseball cap. My slight Southern drawl can become quite pronounced. It is a skill every Southern boy has seen an old Southern lady do at least once in his life. This is play on a stereotype—remember that filter? Once someone writes me off as stupid I can then relax my guard and do whatever I need to do, assured that people rarely change their first impressions.
I’m Just a Kid
Similar to playing on femininity, a young person can play naïve and uninformed easily with a self-consumed person who is older. This is the simplest for young people to pull off because their body language is likely less polished and fits the profile.
The Blamer
He or she preys on the fact that no one likes to be accused. Human nature drives you to deny or defend, which focuses all energy internally looking for that fact or plea that will change others’ minds. This ploy successfully blinds the eye of an opponent; it is one strategy that is difficult to fight. You need to pause and watch the accuser’s body language to know whether it is a ploy or an actual attack the person thinks has merit.
The Magician
This has overlap with other strategies, which are basically variations with the same objective: If I can take your eyes off my body language for a moment, maybe you will miss the facts. Nevertheless, I separate out the Magician because there is an entire class of people who use movement of hands, feet, and objects to mask body language entirely. Examples are the guy who moves in very close and whispers to make you feel uncomfortable. The distraction makes you miss the rest of his body language. Or the woman who unfastens a few buttons so you can peek at her surgeon’s handiwork. These outrageous moves will accomplish the goal of taking your mind off something else. A person may even use some other prop such as a Rolex watch. All use your tendency to keep your eye on the ball to effect the desired result.
The Car Salesman
He or she subscribes to the adage “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” Everyone has met the guy who sounds as though he has swallowed the Guinness Book of World Records. When his strategy works, he carries off the same sleight-of-hand tricks as the Magician. It falls apart when you challenge his understanding of the facts he quotes. He takes you off a sensitive topic that would make him look bad by tossing out, “Every minute we do nothing in Vulgaria, three children die.” He becomes adept at tying anything back to some obscure fact that is difficult to verify and only tangentially germane to the topic. The reason a person akin to this survives is that most people are intimidated by his “knowledge” and the rest follow another well-known adage, “Never argue with an idiot; he will beat you down to his level and win with experience.”
Again, the permutations are tremendous. The thing they all have in common is a ploy to distract your mind from the obvious things a toddler would see, and to bring you around to his way of thinking. Build your own list of ploys. Here’s one to start with: The Ringmaster: “I am so busy that….”
I want you to put your new categories to work by examining strategies of the rich and famous, and noticing when they fail as well as when they succeed. Elections, news, and red-carpet events will now have a new dimension for you. Instead of wondering why you feel distrust or disgust about a politician, you have the eye to spot verbal and non-verbal warning signs. And are the stars you love to love and love to hate really deserving of all that emotion?
US Weekly asked me to analyze Jennifer Aniston’s body language during the flurry of interviews that followed the intergalactic publicity over her breakup with Brad Pitt. In observing her gestures, I concluded that she was too honest to hide her true feelings completely, regardless of what she said; it was refreshing. Suddenly a star I knew nothing about (I’m one of the 19 people who never watched Friends) differentiated herself from the other celebrities I’d been asked to critique because the role she played in interviews was herself. She came across as someone who would make a good friend. For real.
As I take you through studies of public figures, I encourage you to watch some of the same video clips on your computer that I reference here. See if you come to the same conclusions I did and, if you don’t, consider how projection, gender (yours and the other person’s), ideology, and other elements may have influenced your thinking.
The Clintons
Love them or hate them, both Bill and Hillary have successful strategies for putting off prying eyes. With two very different personalities, each adapted to a microculture—their personal relationship—that images of the couple together merely hint at. Ironically, they have managed to accomplish this cover-up while creating images as recognizable as the Kennedys.
In looking through her book Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003), I see a couple with contrasting body-language styles: Bill, the life of the party, with his arm around Hillary, the grounded one. His focus: broad; often leaning towards her while maintaining the attention of the camera. Her focus: narrow; the cameras. A task-oriented person, she has an agenda and she knows what it takes to complete the task. Does this say one cannot be funny and the other serious? Or that one needs more approval than the other? Obviously not when we consider the Clintons’ track records.
Bill Clinton
The former president is not a flirt he is The Flirt. He defines extrovert. I know a few people who have met him and walked away enamored of him, regardless of political leaning. One man who met him on a golf course said, “It was like talking to someone you have known all your life, and like he was focused on only me while we spoke.” He is never distracted openly and intently focuses on whomever he is speaking to. This has kept him alive. He fills the air and takes distance away, in part through solid eye contact, but in equal part through solid use of illustrators and regulators, as well as a persistent smile. He is smiling—whether his face is smiling or not—and there is a certain childlike enthusiasm in his voice even when denying infidelity. He has a natural charisma and the ability to make everyone feel as though he is connected to him or her. I read a bipartisan poll (for what it’s worth) that answered the question “Who would you rather have a beer with: Bush or Clinton?” Guess who won. You never noticed his body language, even as he whipped the American psyche with his figurative riding crop as he declared, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman….” His charm takes us away from the body language that would tell the truest of stories. The strategy is a perfect fit.
Hillary Clinton
In analyzing Senator Hillary Clinton, I found riveting contrasts in body language between her and the person she criticized as “heartless,” pundit Ann Coulter. It is as natural for Senator Clinton to use the word “heartless” to define an enemy soldier of the right as it is for Ann Coulter to use the word “Godless” in describing the elite of the left. Both are sensationalist ways of inciting the emotion of the typical.
By the way, I cringe in using “sensationalist” about Hillary Clinton’s speaking style.
To describe Hillary Clinton’s style as anything more than wooden or mechanical, you would need to see her “on cause.” The first thing I notice about her speaking style is the tether to the text, whether her statement is a few sentences or a few pages. I do not think she is always reading, but rather barriering herself. Regardless, her habit of “reading” has invited criticism, including a recent jab from Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In a Senate probe in response to the secretary, Clinton once again read her brief comment from a prepared statement and he took shots at her because of it. She held her lips pursed, and had the tone of voice of a prim grammar-school teacher as she chided the secretary for his and President Bush’s failures. Hillary at her best. How can you respond to her attacks? This is about you, not her. She represents the truth. This energy sent a clear picture of the Holy Warrior prepared to do battle for what is right (actually, “correct”).
In watching speech after speech, I rarely saw her raise her center of gravity from behind the podium. She moved along precisely enunciating every word, as though she needed to be understood by one of those automated bill-paying systems. She gestures and uses her hands appropriately enough to get her point across. Facial features also reflect a congruency with her speech, and, occasionally, she even leaks a little emotion. When she is “on cause,” though, she springs to life. She can take on the role of smug Holy Warrior in an instant. Her body armor becomes the issue she is supporting, whether it is the defeat of a voucher system because some parents will want to use it to put their kids in a Jihad-focused school, or removal of violent video games from children’s hands.
Her stress surfaces in a move I typically see in heavy people. It’s a shifting of weight from one foot to the other in an adaptor I call the elephant shuffle.
Despite her quirks, Hillary Clinton has created an image that many Americans seem to prefer. She can call someone from the right “heartless,” because the hard right has a difficult time connecting with average people. But here’s the irony in terms of her body language: while her message is one of warmth and caring, her demeanor shows neither.
Ann Coulter
When she’s among friends, being interviewed by conservative acolytes, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter projects confidence, and her wit flows with very little hesitation in voice or body. Even there, however, when she isn’t in the middle of a strafing run on Democrats, you’ll see her run her hand through her hair and fidget a little with her fingers, which she usually keeps laced as a control mechanism.
Years of being “the girl” among a bunch of college Republicans and later inside the Washington, D.C., Beltway has given her a strategy that clearly uses her gender and physical attractiveness to her advantage. Lets face it: how many other ultraconservatives do you see who have pitched battles in a little black dress? When she is among her admirers she tilts her head occasionally with a soft, amused smile, and she pushes her long, silky locks back over her feminine ears as a reminder that she is the pretty girl among the troglodytes of the hard right. She often laughs at her own punch lines. Between that and playing with her hair, she comes across as artificially girlish. This is response to a culture where she is a unique creature.
Part of the problem in trying to catch Ann Coulter’s body language when she is not in control is that so many of her interviews occur with men who adore her. Smiling at her through her own self-amused ha-ha-ha. She’s the golden-haired beauty of conservative men, the sex symbol of the hard right, and they generally don’t ask her tough questions that might make her nervous. When they do, she does what she says she hates: ignores the question or changes the subject. She then punctuates her dismissal with a hand wave and a little more laughter. If this is her body language among friends, does she use it in the enemy camp as well when attacking or being attacked?
That’s why no analysis of Ann Coulter’s body language would be complete without looking at her appearance on Hannity &Colmes. Alan Colmes may not be the toughest player on television, but he does stand proudly as the liberal counterpart to Sean Hannity. On one show, she finds a quote that Colmes uses so offensive that she bursts out an accusation that he’s lying.
Not surprisingly, he takes it as an insult and counters her. She talks over him while her flailing arms, raised voice, and random words show she is out of control. She quickly employs all of the “I’m just a girl” moves in her repertoire, none of which work. Alan is bolstered by a fellow liberal and goes after her. A sharp shift in body language signals her discomfort, and a stream of girly, dismissive gestures and nervous laughter follow. These are body language for “I’m trying to push you away. I’m trying to push your ideas out of the interview.” She physically leans closer to the conservatives in the studio as if to say, “Help!” Even to the casual observer, her deliberate lean away from Colmes would project that Ann Coulter’s whole being no longer wants to be anywhere near this ideological threat.
During her Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, 2006) promotion tour, a stop on the Today show also brought her into conflict with Matt Lauer (whose tiff with Tom Cruise receives attention later in this chapter). First, her “uniform” for this interview and many others seems to be a sleeveless black dress that is the same (or similar to) what she wears on the Godless cover. Facing Lauer, with two-thirds of her long legs showing and the tips of her blonde hair brushing her breasts, her presentation made the point that body language includes choices of dress and grooming. It was obvious that she was doing something analogous to what she accused the widows of 9/11 of doing. Their dead husbands are assets in making a political point, and they used them. Ann Coulter’s assets are legs, hair, and wit, and she used them.
She inserted her points effectively in the interview until Matt Lauer made one unsettling comment. Coulter had insisted that the reason these widows served the liberal cause well was because they couldn’t be challenged; that would come across as mean and inappropriate. “Well, apparently you are allowed to respond to them,” he said simply. She suddenly became a supplicant, with hands in an almost begging posture. “Well, yeah, I did,” she responded.
He kept at her, pushing until she finally burst out: “You’re getting testy with me…awwww.” Arousing the audience with that remark (and probably dividing the audience) marked the beginning of an attempt to boomerang back into control. Her body language invited her admirers to close ranks around her in a virtual sense. Even the best strategies do not work all of the time.
George W. Bush
Contrast Hillary Clinton’s rarely off book style with President George W. Bush’s often critiqued shoot-from-the-hip style. He swaggers when he walks, as any good cowboy would. He is often working without a net and says things that the media finds worth mocking. Whether you actually like him, or just listen for what he will say, his body language projects a genuineness, and generally remains on track.
His style also fails him. Uncertainty as to how a specific point will be received, or whether he may have flubbed a fact, causes an involuntary response that I call the goofy country-boy smile. His face—not his mouth—is asking, “Does that sound okay?” Time after time, I see him search his head for the right words—the prepared words—in response to questions. When he is on the hot seat, he starts to rummage though his mental files to access the words some expert on his staff gave him. The result is a somewhat halting, often piecemeal-sounding response. Most of the Bushisms come as a result of a “right church, wrong pew” kind of statement. He has researched and prepared a great response and it is filed neatly in his head; unfortunately, he put it in the wrong drawer. When he realizes his goof, he feels the pressure increase, and leaks the stress with comments such as “Too many OBGYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women….” Because he has been in the public eye for a good portion of his life, he has adapted a self-deprecating sense of humor, and is often underestimated as a result of employing it successfully. It’s a keen use of the There Is Nothing to See Here strategy. One does not have to be Einstein to pretend to be less than he is.
Mark Foley
As I write this, Mark Foley (R-Florida) has just resigned after his dirty little text messages surfaced in the news. In reviewing ABC News footage of him from an earlier interview, I noticed a body-language giveaway. When questioned about legislation he sponsored for exactly the kinds of crimes of which he is now accused, he said, “These people need counseling, they certainly don’t need to be in... (pregnant stammer) interacting with young people.” All the time his brow lifted to extremes. Was this a call for help?
Nixon and Kennedy vs.
historical memory
What do you think of Richard Nixon?
Although it isn’t possible for most Americans of the Baby Boomer generation, if they could watch Richard Nixon without bias, they would be charmed and surprised. They would subliminally recognize the synchronicity of his gestures and message, that is, his energy is focused in the same direction. The result is that they would perceive a genuineness, and in every video I have seen of Nixon—until the end when he morphed into a guarded, dark individual—that’s what I see. The Nixon who ran against John F. Kennedy, served in the White House before Watergate, and opened doors with China projected congruency and truth, and was often rather unsophisticated about it. His strategy was What you See is WhatYou Get.
Now turn the prejudice around so that it works in favor of the candidate. During that presidential campaign between JFK and Nixon, the Kennedy clan moved way out front into the limelight to help his cause. His brothers were out there, and even his mother took the spotlight, ostensibly dragging Jacqueline into it, as well. They were all Holy Warriors, except for Jacqueline.
One interview that featured Rose and Jacqueline Kennedy aimed to bring the American people “into the living room” during the campaign. How that ever worked to convince average Americans that JFK should sit in the White House is testimony to our naïveté as a nation. We are now so jaded by “candid” television interviews with candidates and their families that we expect them to be better actors, to decorate the set so that the majority of viewers will find it appealing, and to speak in the language of typical Americans. Almost no one else in America lived the way the Kennedys lived, but millions of people looked up to that family and carried a bias that their “royal” presence was a good thing for America—that it could lift us up. After all, if our most super-typical was so noble, what does it say about us?
The two women sat on a well-upholstered, uncomfortable looking sofa. Jackie delivered rehearsed answers to questions about the campaign—fluffy questions, not policy stuff—and Rose responded with stilted, puppet-like gestures. I wondered who’s arm was in there making her head and hands do such odd things.
In another televised speech, Rose Kennedy was at a podium stumping for her son in a feather stole, and pearls that were more expensive that most people’s houses.
Today, we would say, “What is this bull? Don’t contrive things like this for us—we know better.” We are a different culture with different cultural biases. Back then, however, we perceived the Kennedys as beautiful people, and felt that making them our “ruling class” made us all more sophisticated and beautiful. On the world stage, we as a nation were not beautiful people during and after World War II. The world saw power in the United States, but our dedication in war and strength on the battlefield did not change the perception that we were a bunch of scrappy rubes.
Celebrities vs.
inquiring minds
After putting it off for months, I finally watched the notorious Tom Cruise interview that had been on the Today show. This is the one that moved him front and center as a spokesman for the Church of Scientology, and a critic of happy drugs.
Prior to the interview turning slightly confrontational, Cruise seemed to entreat Matt Lauer to understand his points about Scientology and overuse of mood-altering medications. His hands took a position suggestive of prayer. It meant that he wanted to be understood. Before Cruise even specifically criticized Lauer for his comments on pharmaceuticals, I could see that his body started to assume the posture of someone who was going on the offensive—and I pointed it out to Maryann. “Watch this!” I remember saying. Just before Cruise launched into his attack on Lauer’s ignorance with “You’re here on the Today show...” his body moved into position. By the time he reprimanded Lauer for spouting off assertions without doing his homework, Cruise’s body was lecturing Lauer every bit as much as his words. It was an example of perfect congruency. To me, that was a sign that his movements were genuine and unrehearsed. Score one for Cruise.
Mixed messages
In an episode of Sex and the City, a 25-year-old female admirer of sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw asks her if she can send her something she’s written. Carrie vigorously shakes her head from side to side as she says yes. About a minute later, the same young woman asks her if she can “assist” her. Carrie vigorously shakes her head again as she says yes. Carrie is a New Yorker, part of a culture unto itself; a committed head shake means, “You must be kidding. Of course not.” But Carrie is too polite to let those words come out of her mouth.
Politicians do this, or some variation of it, all the time. In other words, they don’t achieve the ultimate in communication: synchronicity of speech and gestures.
In watching Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) address the Senate relative to the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, she showed a lot of incongruous body language. It looked as though she had determined that a static posture behind a podium wouldn’t work for television, so she threw in a few arm gestures that had nothing to do with honest expression. That’s not to say her words weren’t genuine, but the artificial movements subtracted honesty points from her presentation. Similarly, her voice and words occasionally came across as incongruous. The most pronounced disconnect was when she said, “You don’t have to thank me,” in relation to the efforts to renew the legislation. Her pause at the end combined with a lilting pitch conveyed the exact opposite message: “I’ve done something important. You really should be thanking me.”
Senator Boxer also reverted to steepling when she didn’t know what to do with her hands. This is a posture with the fingers outstretched and touching; an upward point displays confidence and a downward point displays supplication or deference to another person. Which posture did Senator Boxer adopt? Supplication.
In all fairness, we shouldn’t leave the discussion of Senator Boxer without noting that she pulled most elements together and projected real passion in speaking about her own proposed legislation, the Count Every Vote Act. Her illustrators were hitting her words in the right place, or, in lay terms, her gestures matched her words and emotions.
The endless campaign
“We should have done it,” is what Senator John Kerry (D-MA) responded when Bill O’Reilly challenged him on July 20, 2006, about not coming on the show during the heat of the presidential election of 2004. Senator Kerry might as well have added, “You believe me, right?” because his raised brows and the lilt at the end of his sentence indicated request for approval.
When talking about a sore point that he needed to address—in response to a direct question about signing on with a colleague to censure President Bush—he tilted his head. Discussing a move similar to that would elicit a bit of emotion when done on the conservative Fox network.
Bill O’Reilly, a master of both asking questions and suggesting answers with his eyebrows, showed an important shortcoming in probing an “unfriendly” (that is, liberal) guest such as Kerry. He blockaded the possibility of reading body language—and really putting Kerry on the spot—by driving on with his prescribed agenda. In quizzing Kerry about the situation in Iraq, therefore, O’Reilly followed the pattern of questions he had in mind to ask. So where Senator Kerry asserted that certain things could be done more effectively, O’Reilly should have read Kerry’s body language, which indicated some uncertainty. The simple question, “How?” could have proved very telling—but he didn’t ask it. Instead, he plowed on and missed a prime opportunity to embarrass Senator Kerry, or at least shake him visibly.
Senator Kerry remained on firm ground, and then delivered a message: “I’ve never suggested pulling out too early,” with arrogance and disgust expressed through raising his chin while he looked down his nose. To viewers, even many viewers who distrust him and despise his politics, he would have projected confidence and superiority.
“Fighting the war on terror more effectively, and that includes preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Now how do you do that? Let me tell you.” Kerry’s measured pace in saying the first phrase stood in sharp contrast to the rapid, “Now how do you do that?”—almost as if it were a single word. And when he followed the question with the offer of an answer, he used a powerful illustrator: arm outstretched with palm upward. This is a classic gesture indicating, “I’m magnanimous. I’m going to give you something.”
O’Reilly wouldn’t let him give anything, though. He used a regulator—hands up like a stop sign—to put himself back on top. It allowed him to ask another question first, a tactic that would interrupt the flow of Kerry’s presentation and undermine his momentum.
Ah ha! Kerry was too clever for that. He shut O’Reilly out again by driving on with his point and using his face: he narrowed his eyes and essentially “closed” his face. He was speaking, not inviting anyone else to speak. His subsequent tone of voice projected an image of educator more than politician, with face and body communicating to O’Reilly as if he were a kid back at St. Bridget’s Catholic School.
It looked as though the senator might be back on the campaign trail.
Actors playing themselves
David Letterman’s interview with Johnny Depp on July 28, 2006, revealed something interesting. It seemed apparent that Depp is, by nature, an introvert.
During the interview, he touched his face occasionally, usually by stroking his moustache, or flicking his nose. A couple of times, he also ran his fingers through his hair and tapped his crossed leg with his fingers—a leg that stayed crossed with the left ankle resting on his right thigh in exactly the same position throughout the interview. I see that as an attempt at control while his face and right hand leaked emotion. He had a litany of adaptors.
Depp seemed genuine—his fidgeting an expression of his true personality. So, I’d conclude he was himself on the show. He didn’t bother to portray a character, as many other introverted actors do when they subject themselves to late-night talk-show banter. I’m sure you’ve seen some of those actors who try to make up for the fact that they are uncomfortable by taking on the role of entertaining guest; they come across as fake.
All of the famous people I have discussed have one thing in common: they evolved a strategy by trial and error. Each of them probably started very similar to you by a simple shake of the head and a later answer of no by your parents when you wanted something. Every time they met a new situation, they evolved their repertoires until the strategy was at its current state of polish. At some point we all stop polishing. The more public among us polish for longer than the more anonymous, all because of constant stimulus.
None of these survival strategies is right or wrong. What works for one person with his extroverted quick wit will not work for the systematic, thorough introvert. By now, you have enough information to analyze for yourself. For most of us, analysis of the famous is passive, meaning we will only watch body language and have little opportunity to influence the body language of the kind of people I profiled here. In the next chapter we will discuss the man in the street, so, we will start the conversation with some active use of body language or how to mange a situation using your body language to influence others.