Here's the bestest analysis you could desire on the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. It comes from Fox "news" host and a man who eats baby voles like peanuts, Bill O'Reilly, who was talking very
seriously last night with very serious body language "expert" Tonya Reiman about Sotomayor's blinking and hand gestures (quoted in full in order to savor every delicious contour). O'Reilly first showed a clip of the judge and then:
"O'REILLY: Okay. So we had a lot of blinking there, Tonya. I should introduce Tonya. Joining us now from West Palm Beach, Florida, the body language czarina, Tonya Reiman. I got a little ahead of myself there. So anxious to hear what you have to say.
So we have fluttering of the eyes. You know, rapid blinking, as most people know if they watch
The Factor, is usually associated with nervousness. And there would be no reason why the...
REIMAN: Right.
O'REILLY: ...judge shouldn't be nervous. I mean, come on. Everybody would be in that situation. But she has some fluttering. And that's what I wanted to know about.
REIMAN: Right. Well, you know what? It's funny because typically you're right, that's an indicator of anxiety of nervousness. When you're watching her, though, if you notice, if you base line her over a period of months, you will realize that's something she does all the time. That's one of her norms.
What I was looking at more was her hand movements, because typically she is a little bit more animated than she was here. Her movements were a little bit more dominant where they are normally a little bit higher up; her gestures are normally higher up.
O'REILLY: So what does that tell you? That she is consciously trying to play it down?
REIMAN: I think that she was really trying to control how she came across. One of the first things I noticed when she is asked the question about her temperament, she does this little unconscious head negation to say complete disagreement, in other words. And then I just noticed that the hand movements were kind of very low...
O'REILLY: Yes.
REIMAN: ...to the table...
O'REILLY: Yes.
REIMAN: ...yet they were open. The fingers were open, palms were down, which is of course the dominant role. And I think that she was controlled and really thinking about the movements she made.
O'REILLY: She looked to be a little hunched over to me. Does that indicate anything at all, or is it just habit? Just the way she sits?
REIMAN: No, because again I think that she typically sits like that. I noticed that in past videos I've looked at, she typically sits a little hunched over."
First off, being a "body language czarina" is like being a "three-card monte fuehrer." It's one of the easiest scams you can pull. Fuckin' Reiman even teaches a "Body Language University" (no,
really). But, hell, she has "a
degree in General Studies," so you know you can trust her insights. Let's hope the czarina of body language doesn't ever meet the Bolsheviks of real psychology. It can't end well for her. Mostly, though, fuck Reiman. Sister's got make a buck from the rubes, you know?
As for O'Reilly, yeah, filling forty minutes or so of show time a night has gotta be hard. 'Cause if you don't talk with some con artist who "has a passion for hypnosis" about whether or not Sen. Chuck Schumer was really choking up when he was giving Sotomayor's life story (which was the next topic after the judge), then you might have to spend more time on important issues like the Michael Jackson death story and make wildly unsubstantiated statements based on the observations of a twit.
Oh, wait, there's this exchange on Jackson's father:
"REIMAN: (W)hen he is asked about the drugs he goes from a steeple of power position to a hand folded position which tells me that he was hiding something there.
O'REILLY: All right, so there is deception in his presentation."
Ya gotta give some props to O'Reilly: Skeevy old guy and hot blonde chick? This shit is like vaudeville.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
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