Presidential Fidgeting
by TChris
Dana Milbank observes that the president, particularly when confronted with uncomfortable questions (and what questions in his disastrous fifth year aren’t uncomfortable?), has been fidgeting like a grade school kid with a serious attention deficit problem.
[D]uring Bush's 14-minute pre-sunrise interview [with Matt Lauer] … [t]he 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.
…
Lauer's query about whether conservatives "are feeling let down by you" appeared to provoke furious jiggling of the right leg.
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