[Mb-civic] For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes - Dana Milbank - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, October 12, 2005; Page A07

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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101577.html
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