What Goes Unsaid
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Posted by James Wolcott
I watched parts of Bush's speech last night with the sound off, observing his body language, facial expressions, etc. Since the soundbites of the speech would be endlessly replayed and the verbiage in between is nothing but Hamburger Helper, I didn't feel I'd be missing much by filtering out the noise and focusing on the mime. Besides, Bush so overenunciates for the cognitive challenged that you don't need to be a lip-reader to pick out keywords like "en-tre-pren-oor,", which tax his mouth to the max.
My clinical evaluation. I don't know if Bush is going to lose the election. But I think he thinks he's going to lose. His eyes were lifeless, devoid of spark. His smiles were forced, his expressions of gratitude for the audience applause more of a mechanical pause than a transference of energy from him to the crowd and back again. When the camera cut to the audience they were doing their orchestrated bit, holding up those dopey signs, but there wasn't the ebullience you saw among the Democrats. Bush seemed to know this speech simply didn't have it, and he didn't have it in him to put it over.
The when it was over the family trooped out. More fascinating repressed psychodrama it would be harder to imagine. The Bush twins came out and embraced their dad, but it was an affectionless embrace, like those brief pats the American girl gymnasts gave each other after one of them after a routine, and immediately broken. Was he upset with their ditzy embarrassing performance?--there was none of the warmth and giddiness one saw with the Kerry and Edwards clans. His hugs of his father and mother were equally perfunctory. Everyone looked ill at ease, and yet when I tuned to PBS and switched on the sound they were blathering about the confetti and the balloon drop, ignoring the stilted pageant below.
Memo to Jim Lehrer: Take naps on those days when you have to stay up late. There's no excuse for doddering from question to question like someone sitting in front of Floyd's barber shop.
jameswolcott.com
09.03.04 10:52AM |
