A treacly tone with a strange misty smile on his face suggesting he was about to burst into tears

[bigtree]

from today's NYT editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/opinion/the-hidden-subject-in-tampa.html?hp?hp

"Mr. Romney’s big speech, delivered in a treacly tone with a strange misty smile on his face suggesting he was always about to burst into tears, was of a piece with the rest of the convention. Republicans have offered precious little of substance …. but no subjects have received less attention, or been treated with less honesty, than foreign affairs and national security — and Mr. Romney’s banal speech was no exception."

read editorial: Mr. Romney Reinvents History
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/opinion/the-hidden-subject-in-tampa.html?_r=1&hp?hp&pagewanted=print

[TwilightGardener]

1. "Treacly"--what an awesome choice of wording.

[grantcart]

4. Yes, perfect. I know some will object but its as if he is holding a string of pearls in his pocket

and is about to whip them out and start clutching them.


I wonder what the service men and women will think when they see that for all his manufactured sentimentalism he couldn't bother with a profunctory thank you to risking their lives for his millions.

[ann---]

7. My thought, too.

Whoever writes his speeches needs an education in composition.

[bigtree]

10. heh

. . . all of the reports said that Romney, himself, was writing the speech.

It shows.

[randome]

6. If you say it fast enough times, you can put yourself into a trance.

Try it.

Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.Treacly.

[siligut]

11. A certain tone and cadence can produce a trance-like state.

And Mormon speakers have been accused of this, Romney is no different and I saw some of it in Ann too.

[randome]

12. Really. That's interesting. No snark intended.

[siligut]

16. Yes, really. You can find plenty of research on the net.

I didn't think you were being snarky. I couldn't watch Mitt, I get too angry, but I just read another poster state that he had them crying, like a contact high. I am not sure I buy into the mystical contact high, but I do know a fair amount about the scientific use of sound to affect the brain and lull the conscious mind.

[progressivebydesign]

23. Interesting. Someone was saying something about "contact crying" last night.

That what he said wasn't particularly moving, but the people around him were crying. Creepy!

[siligut]

32. She actually works with minds

The poster that posted about the contact high actually knows quite a bit about the human mind.

Very good observation, and yes, "creepy" describes it accurately.

[randome]

25. That sounds like it could be a niche career on its own.

[siligut]

27. OK, now I know you are being snarky

[randome]

34. No. Not at all.

Scientific investigation. PR work. Hell, someone with enough expertise could advise political campaigns!

Not that I'm advocating manipulating people's emotions through subtle use of sound but...it's sounds like a feasible idea.

Advising daycare workers. Patient care workers. Probably no one would want to pay for it, though. I'm just theorizing all over the place for the hell of it.

[siligut]

36. Advertising, mental health, sales . . .

It is being used now. Sometimes by unscrupulous people too.

[1StrongBlackMan]

31. I read ...

long ago, where pyschologists have suggested that that was what moved people about Hitler.

[siligut]

35. Yes, I believe this also

Most people know Hitler was around people who were involved in the occult. Occult just means hidden or secret, and the use of mind control is part of that. There is much more to this, but there are many indications that Hitler used mind control techniques.

[bigtree]

15. omg

. . . was I being hypnotized??!!

Those crafty Mormons!

[siligut]

17. I don't know; are you going to vote for Mitt now?

Mormon leaders have to be crafty, have you reviewed any of their dogma?

[bigtree]

22. Mitt GOOD! Obama BAD!

. . . oh, snap! Where am I?

I do remember what i read about blacks and their church. All of the origins of those early beliefs about folks with dark skin are as bizarre as the manner in which the church insists the change in policy came from yet another 'revelation'. Couldn't just declare right from wrong, it had to be a religion thing. I am sort of bitter about all of that and have to wonder just how removed all of it is from the thinking and reasoning of folks like Romney who still embrace that religion and culture; especially because of their church's insistence that it was some divinity that changed their minds; not a decision dominated by any overt reasoning.

[siligut]

26. Whew, glad you snapped out of it

Yes, the blacks and the LDS church. How irritating is all that religious manipulation crafted around discrimination? Since the LDS president speaks with god directly, and because Mormons had been repeatedly taught that god had said that blacks were black because they were being punished, there had to be some big revelation to alter that. I was in Utah in '95 and it really hadn't been fixed, so to be concerned about Romney is justified.

Have you heard the Mormon couplet or whatever it is that, 'When the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done'? This is paraphrased, but what I want to communicate is that to hope for actual reasoning is asking too much.

[Kablooie]

24. Lyle's Black for you.

Yum.

[nc4bo]

2. Explanation why so many people noticed Romney's big red eyes before he opened his mouth.....

He was practicing producing human tears at just the right time in his speech.

Actor. Fraud. Fake. Robotic. Cold.

[Zorra]

3. Recommend nt

[jillan]

5. I'm not defending Mitt in anyway - but - I heard that he was recovering from a bad cold.

[ann---]

9. I heard that, too, but

since the Romney/Ryan campaign does nothing but LIE, I think that was a "made up" excuse after seeing how awful his eyes looked on stage.

[bigtree]

13. Ha Ha Ha!

ha!

What a sorry excuse . . .

[siligut]

19. Cold virus symptoms last for at least a week

I have to question the bad cold story.

[nolabear]

8. The whole pack was crying like babies. I've never seen the like.

I'm not really criticizing it; I cry at the drop of a hat and I'm pretty smart and capable. But once the Mormon contingent got going it seemed everyone who took the podium was weeping openly, including a lot of the audience. It was a contact high at its greatest. I'll be happy when, in a few days, they're shedding a whole different kind of tears as our conventio gets under way.

[Kalidurga]

14. I think they were crying for a similar reason now...

They were thinking, my god this is our nominee. Egads, he is worse than McCain. We are all doomed.

[bigtree]

18. It really is visceral

. . . for these folks with limited ability to sort through all of the details of policy and who did what. Definitely a different type of voter who responds to that type of an appeal in that way.

You're right. There will be a different reaction and a whole new set of emotions from that crowd next week in front of their televisions.

[nolabear]

20. And really, it will be visceral from us too. But when that clears we'll still work for one another

while they'll idealize selfishness. It's the maudlin side of narcissistic idealization. You identify with someone who's making grandiose, narcissistic claims and feel all good about yourself and then weep as they tell you how wonderful they are and then you all go back to ignoring the "lesser" people, forgetting in reality that you are in fact one of them. We KNOW we're in this together and work to help those who need us, not sneer at them.

[siligut]

21. The girls always cry when a young male leaves for his mission

I heard this repeatedly. Maybe they believe crying adds drama and significance.

[spanone]

28. the most insincere man in the universe

[Blue Owl]

29. Makes ya wanna projectile vomit

[flamingdem]

30. He's been botoxed. Just noticed it.

It took five years off his face but made him look stiffer still!

[MADem]

33. I will say it again--the guy was on "tranqs." The characteristic strung-out tension that is

customarily found in his voice was absent. He was slurring a few words. The one that jumped out at me was "groin jobs" where he meant to say "growing jobs."

He paid for a patina of relaxation with slippage in his customarily robust diction. And that smarmy (treacly) look on his face? The dude was pill-high.

Didn't stop him from lying his ass off though, did it?

[grantcart]

37. I don't know where he bought that expression but he should get a refund