Body English

WaPo's Dana Milbank, who's veered back and forth between loyally adhering to the Bush talking points and actually being a real reporter, is uncharacteristically snarky in commenting on C-Plus Caligula's body language during yesterday's interview with Matt Lauer and the other photo-ops in which he posed as yet another of the Village People yesterday (I think the only one he has left is the Indian chief):

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.

When the questioning turned to Miers, Bush blinked 37 times in a single answer -- along with a lick of the lips, three weight shifts and some serious foot jiggling. Laura Bush, by contrast, delivered only three blinks and stood still through her entire answer about encouraging volunteerism.

Perhaps the set itself made Bush uncomfortable. He and his wife stood in casual attire, wearing tool belts, in front of a wall frame and some Habitat for Humanity volunteers in hard hats. ABC News noted cheekily of its rival network's exclusive: "He did allow himself to be shown hammering purposefully, with a jejune combination of cowboy swagger and yuppie self-consciousness."

[snip]

Certainly, Bush retained many of the gestures that work well for him: the purposeful but restrained hand gestures, the head-tilted smile of amusement and the easy laugh. But he seemed to lose control of the timing. He smiled after observing that Iraqis are "paying a serious price" because of terrorism.

As Lauer went through his introduction, the presidential eyes zoomed left, then right, then left and right again, then center, down and up at the interviewer. The presidential fidgeting spiked when Lauer mentioned the Democratic accusation that Bush was performing a "photo op." Bush pushed out his lower front lip, then licked the right corner of his mouth. Lauer's query about whether conservatives "are feeling let down by you" appeared to provoke furious jiggling of the right leg.

Bush joked about his state of mind when Lauer asked Laura Bush about the strain on her husband. "He can barely stand!" the president said, interrupting. "He's about to drop on the spot." But the first lady had a calming influence on the presidential wiggles. When Laura Bush spoke about her husband's "broad shoulders," the president put his arm around her -- and the swaying and shifting subsided.

The president, now on more comfortable terrain, delivered a brief homily about "the decency of others" and "how blessed we are to be an American." Through the entire passage, he blinked only 12 times.

Here's what the book The Book of Tells, by Peter Collett, says about blinking and fidgeting:

Most people believe that gaze aversion is a sign of lying. They assume that because liars feel guilty, embarrassed and apprehensive, they find it difficult to look their victim in the eye. This is not what happens. First, patterns of gaze are quite unstable - while some liars avert their eyes, others actually increase the amount of time they spend looking at the other person.

As gaze is fairly easy to control, liars can use their eyes to project an image of honesty. Knowing that other people assume gaze aversion is a sign of lying, many liars do the exact opposite - they deliberately increase their gaze to give the impression that they're telling the truth.

Another supposed sign of lying is rapid blinking. It's true that when we become aroused or our mind is racing, there's a corresponding increase in our blinking rate. Our normal rate is about 20 blinks per minute, but it can increase to four or five times that figure when we feel under pressure. When liars are searching for an answer to an awkward question, their thought processes speed up. In this kind of situation, lying is frequently associated with blinking. But we need to remember that there are times when people have a high blinking rate, not because they're lying, but because they're under pressure. Also, there are times when liars show normal rates.

[snip]

Fidgeting and awkward hand movements are also thought to be signs of deceit - the assumption being that when people are lying they become agitated and this gives rise to nervous movements of the hands. There is a class of gestures called "adaptors" which consists of actions like stroking one's hair, scratching one's head or rubbing the hands together. When people tell lies they sometimes feel guilty or worried about being found out, and these concerns can cause them to produce adaptors. This tends to happen when the stakes are high or when the liar isn't very good at deception.