Posted on 08/27/2008 10:45:31 AM PDT by drzz
CBS) In her speech to the Democratic convention Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton urged fellow Democrats to vote for Barack Obama, and she did it in no uncertain terms -- verbally.
But did her body language match her words?
Body language expert and former FBI agent Joe Navarro says he doesn't think so.
Navarro, who wrote the book "What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People," explained to Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez Wednesday, "We need non-verbal (cues) to tell us what is important, what is significant, and what should we be looking for."
And Clinton's non-verbals, he says, were revealing.
"What we wanted to see was a Churchillian speech, something that would move her candidate to cross that magic fence. And she delivered a speech, but the gestures -- the non-verbals that give us the emotion -- really weren't there."
Navarro later added, "I think her message was supposed to be, 'Hey, go with me and let's vote for Barack.' There should have been a lot more emotive displays, and we just simply did not see that."
For instance, "One of the things that you see is she has very limited hand gestures. And we look for hand gestures to tell us what's important. So, when we see them out, when we see them up, this is significant. And we saw them just a few times last night, but not enough. This was not an impassioned speech."
On the other hand, Rodriguez observed, "When she was talking about things that were important to her, I did notice (non-verbals), like healthcare."
"Health care -- there was a lot of self-touching," Navarro agreed. "When she was talking about McCain, there was a lot of emphasis, when she talked about her husband. We saw more non-verbals from the audience in regards to these issues than we saw from her."
Perhaps, Rodriguez suggested, Clinton just isn't one who uses her hands much while speaking. For example, "I noticed that she does something with her shoulders. Maybe that's how she emphasizes."
"One of the ways that we emphasize is by defying gravity," Navarro pointed out, "and our shoulders come up, or we stand on our toes. She does that a little bit. But that's so weak that we tend to miss it.
"Now, toward the end of her speech, we saw her hands come up and high and so forth. This is where emotion was truly there."
Rodriguez said she noticed Michelle Obama in the audience "pursing her lips a little bit" at times. Did that mean Michelle was as a little bit uncomfortable during Clinton's speech?
"It depends," Navarro replied, "on when you see her. I think a couple of times there when they were picturing her, perhaps she was thinking, 'This should be a little better' and so forth. (But) I think Michelle was very receptive. Her non-verbals actually were great at the beginning as she was, you know, you saw a lot of head tilt, which is indicative of 'I'm receptive,' and so forth."
Navarro was a big fan of Michelle's speech Monday night,
"I think it was a home run," Navarro observed. "She's a beautiful woman. You know, her hugs are genuine. She has those beautiful high cheek bones that we see in models. The broad shoulders. (She had a wide stance). Her gestures are huge. They are very encompassing. These things draw us in. These are the things we look for. Otherwise, just hand out a memo."
Does anyone know of a way to destroy the last five minutes of my memory? Thanks in advance because if it works I won't remember you told me.
What can her cankles tell us?
What can her cankles tell us?
Perhaps the extended middle finger on each hand as she spoke the Obamahdi’s name was a clue?!? ;-P
Saw this article right after posting to you. :-)
I kept looking at the upturned mouth...it looked like “the joker”. Very staged. She is very good at it tough, compared to most people who are easy to read.
I think Michelle expected the cameras to show her own reaction at the beginning, so she was careful about her expression. I think as the speech went on, Michelle forgot to pose and she ended up letting her own feelings show. I think she was very unhappy.
But what do I know? I'm no FBI expert.
Apparently the author just returned from a Med cruise, or was recently paroled.
This is funny. Fox News had some young babe on who’s (supposedly) a body language expert, who said the opposite. She could only come up with one instance early in the speech that Clinton appeared disingenuous. Beyond that, it was quite believable.
Why these TV outlets want to drag out these people is beyond me. Well, no it isn’t. They want to slant opinion.
Does anyone know of a way to destroy the last five minutes of my memory? Thanks in advance because if it works I won't remember you told me.
Yes, I just did it about 5 minutes ago...did it work? Darn, I guess I just undid it didn't I?
No need to thank me.
Funny, but I’d thought her “body language” would tell us she was actually a Fembot. My bad.
That she will start laying out roots if she stands in one place too long.
I think she’s literally trying to look and act like Shirley Jones in ‘The Partridge Family’.
You need to be an expert from the FBI to figure that out?
Maybe...
She didn’t want to “off” 18 million ________ in one swoop. But, one at a time....they’re falling...like dominos...
Hillary is the Ice Queen. She doesn’t want you to know what she is thinking.
If you want to know what she is thinking, look at her eyes. They are the windows to the soul. They never match her language, or her smile. They seem to me hard and angry.
Watching Hillary talk to someone you know she doesn’t like is a truly frightening thing. She looks at them and smiles, but you know she wants to grind them into the ground.
This is what she is trying to look like because of the emotional, familiar connection with a lot of women and men who remember (getting deeper)....
Shirley Jones.
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