Recognizing Paul Ryan’s ‘tell’ when he is trying to avoid something
By Matt Miller, Thursday, August 16, 5:05 PM
In poker a “tell” is the physical giveaway or tic that lets you know someone is lying about their hand. In politics it’s the mode of evasion a politician chooses to sidestep a truth they don’t want to admit, or to avoid saying something against self-interest. In his debut interview with Fox News’ Brit Hume Tuesday, Rep. Paul Ryan’s “tells” were audacious, and revealing. They suggest an opening Democrats would be wise to pursue.
Ryan (R-Wis.) tried to cloak himself in his supposedly charming “wonky-ness” to sidestep two simple questions from Hume: When does Mitt Romney’s budget reach balance, and when does Ryan’s own budget plan do the same? Ryan pirouetted because Hume’s queries threatened to expose his famed “fiscal conservatism” as a fraud.
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But Hume grows quietly impatient. He practically cuts Ryan off.
“I get that,” Hume says. “But what about balance?”
You can see Ryan flinch. He doesn’t know, he says. Why not? “I don’t want to get wonky on you,” he says, recovering, “because we haven’t run the numbers on that specific plan.” But that’s not “getting wonky” at all. As common sense (and the Gingrich/Clinton approach) suggests, there’s nothing arcane about this subject. You decide on a sensible path to balance as a goal and come up with policies that achieve it. All this means is that Romney hasn’t done what a fiscally conservative leader would do. Trying to evade this as a matter of not “getting wonky” is Ryan’s tell. He’s betting Hume is too dumb, uninterested or short on time to press the point.
Ryan then adds that “the plan that we’ve offered in the House balances the budget.” But he immediately stops short of saying when — you see his eyes dart to the right at that moment, his next tell — because that would mean admitting it reaches balance in the 2030s. And Ryan wants to get through this interview without saying that, because he knows it doesn’t sound good. After all, what kind of “fiscal conservative” has a 25-year plan to balance the budget? Instead, in a practiced maneuver signaled by his telltale sideways glance, he moves to a contrast with Obama, who he says has never offered a budget that ever reaches balance.
much more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/matt-miller-recognizing-paul-ryans-tell-when-he-is-trying-to-avoid-something/2012/08/16/f70201fa-e7df-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_story.html
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If you are looking straight at a person on television you can tell when they are "remembering" (eyes go to right of screen, or to their left) and when they are "making up" a story (eyes go to left of screen), or to their physical right. When the eyes go upwards (right or left) it is visual, straight across is auditory, and toward bottom corners is kinaesthetic, constructing or making up feelings or sensations.
I catch people all the time by watching where their eyes go.
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