September 9, 2016

Um, how the hell do you know?

"Does body language really give Trump insight into intelligence operatives’ thoughts? Um, no."

Says WaPo's Peter W. Stevenson, using the infuriating — and taboo on some websites — intro "Um."
When NBC's Matt Lauer asked Donald Trump on Wednesday night about the classified intelligence briefings he now receives as a major-party candidate for president, Trump was careful not to divulge anything he's learned so far. But he did say he learned one thing that surprised him: That the intelligence officials briefing him "were not happy" because "our leaders did not follow what they were recommending."

How did Trump come to that conclusion? By reading the body language of those intelligence officials.

"You know, I'm pretty good with the body language," he assured the audience. Um, what?
Um, consider the possibility that you are the stupid one. Oh, the supercilious elite! How about trying to understand why Trump has been successful? Do you really think people don't have aptitude — varying aptitude — for reading other people and knowing what they are really thinking?

122 comments:

Birkel said...

Trump would be that smart if he had the required (D) beside his name.
As it stands now, he cannot be that smart, by definition.

TreeJoe said...

I've read numerous articles - written by different authors for different publications all on the same day - that SWEAR the intelligence community does not make policy recommendations and that Trump is full of crap that they would intimate recommendations contrary to white house recommendations.

And then on the flip side, we hear the intel community altered reports to show ISIS was not winning/was losing more than they were in order to influence perception and policy, that faulty intel pushed policy for Iraq, etc.

Intelligence isn't supposed to direct policy, but it IS supposed to show what courses of actions might yield what results. Or as a professor of one liked to say: Data + Analysis = Insight.

Nonapod said...

I agree that the whole "Um" thing is annoying. When someone starts a written sentence with "Um", the voice in my head automatically reads everything that follows in a vacuous valley girl voice, which doesn't exactly help whatever argument the writer is trying to make.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I've been dealing with the public all my professional life. In one instance, when I was working for a former monopoly communications company (I bet you can figure it out) we had formal training on reading body language and how to control our own body language in order to be successful as sales people. In training at one of the broker dealer firms I was working at, again...extensive training in non verbal communication and persuasion. :-)

Body language, facial expressions, physical tics are all very revealing. Any sales person or person who wants to persuade you will consciously use it themselves and be aware of yours. People who are even minimally aware but not formally trained will be able to pick up on clues as to what people are feeling and conveying to you in your body language.

The lack of awareness in this area, especially with people who are Autistic or on the upper end of the spectrum, Asperger's for example, is notorious. The inability to pick up the non verbal clues and the resulting social awkwardness is part of that condition.

Trump has made his career out of making "deals" with people. You can't possibly accomplish this without being exquisitely aware of body language (non verbal communication) and able to use it yourself.

This WaPo guy is an idiot and I can tell that without even looking at him.

Bobby said...

Ann, intelligence briefers do not make policy recommendations. They present analysis and assessments, but it is NOT the forum to recommend courses of action. Any intelligence briefer who did that would be freelancing and it just does not happen. However, it is entirely possible that their disdain of current Administration policy shined through their brief (intelligence operatives are humans after all, and there is a LOT to disdain in our current national security and foreign policy), and this would especially be true if/when a particular intelligence briefing point does not match the wordsmithed talking point of the Administration's spin doctors. But that is not quite what Trump claimed, though I'm willing to believe that it's minute enough that he wouldn't discern the difference.

rhhardin said...

Movie directors can't read the body language of dogs.

They get dogs saying things completely at odds with the plot points.

Moonraker is a good example

Sprezzatura said...

"Do you really think people don't have aptitude — varying aptitude — for reading other people and knowing what they are really thinking?"

I have this ability. My aptitude tells me that DJT knew he could use these briefings politically by attributing made up things to folks who are barred from correcting the record.

Cool.

Thorley Winston said...

I think Trump wins on this issue because most people aren’t so much interested in Trump’s ability to read body language as they are whether our elected leaders are getting and following good advice from our intelligence agencies and how that has impacted our foreign policy. Hilary Clinton’s most recent claim to fame is as President Obama’s last Secretary of State and she’s tied to his foreign policy regardless of whether she promises to do things differently. It also undercuts the argument that she and her surrogates have been making that Trump can’t be trusted because he won’t listen to people should it turn out that Obama (and by extension her) failed to heed the advice of our intelligence officials and our nation’s interests suffered as a result.


khesanh0802 said...

I second DBQ. Body language is obvious and critical.

Thorley Winston said...

Ann, intelligence briefers do not make policy recommendations.

Maybe not, but they probably get asked questions like: if we provide arms to Syrian rebels, how likely is it that those weapons will end up in the hands of ISIS? That’s not a recommendation per se so much as it is counseling on the potential risks vs rewards of a particular action. If they’ve been advising our elected officials of the risks of a particular action and feel like they’ve been ignored by leaders who later deny that what they were warned about came to happen or that they were warned about it, I can imagine there’s some level of frustration on the part of our intelligence officials.




readering said...

I know because i've been watching Trump talking out of his, um, ass for the past 15 months and this sounded like the most Trumpian thing ever.

Sprezzatura said...

And, as Althouse noted, it's important to read DJT today by looking at his record of business success that has proceeded hand in hand w/ his taking advantage of folks in dealings:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/

He definitely has an aptitude for finding success while screwing folks who he deals w/. Why wouldn't he do the same w/ these briefings. Not to mention the dopes he gets to vote for him.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Right, the geniuses at WaPo who think there's too much reporting on Hillary's emails (even though the only person to ask her why she should be elected after doing what would have resulted in jail for the questioner was a member of the audience and notably NOT a member of the press, especially NOT a member of her highness's traveling press menagerie) also want us to think that the guys who analyze and present intelligence top POTUS do so without favoring one response over the other? And if they get into "IF this THEN that" discussion, one wouldn't be able to suss out their preferences or opinions on current events? Really?

The briefers would have to be as robotic as the Dem nominee to result in such a "clinical" view of intelligence.

khesanh0802 said...

@Thorley Winston Absolutely, and if you don't ask questions and read the attitude of the questioned then you should be changing tires for a living. Every reporter in the country will claim they are able to tell when they are being lied to. What's wrong with this guy?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Bobby

Analysts, of any kind not just intelligence government analysts, get really annoyed when you present the facts and results of their analytical and it is either dismissed or deemed to be worthless.

While the analyst may not be making a direct recommendation or may be precluded from, the course of action that they imply is in the analysis and is a result of much hard work, data compiling and factual representations. The politicians who dismiss what to the analyst is evident and irrefutable facts are doing so out of emotion, political expediency and other rationals that are entirely foreign to the meticulous minds of the analytical types.

SO even though the analysts may not have made a definitive recommendation, they are angry, annoyed, irked, irritated, jerked off by being ignored.

When I would present a requested portfolio analysis or construct a presentation portfolio and resulting plan and then be brushed off by a client or prospect, I would have the luxury of telling the client that we obviously are not going to be able to work together if they are unwilling to even consider my (hard worked upon) advice.....and would suggest that they might be better off with a person with whom they can be more compatible (Don't let the door hit you on the way out!) Even though I got paid for my work it was still annoying to be devalued.

Unfortunately, the government analysts don't have that luxury. They have to sit there and take it. No wonder they are annoyed and it shows in their body language. Probably many of such analysts are on the Autism Spectrum themselves. :-)

traditionalguy said...

OK, everybody knows that reading body language of the humans you are meeting is the original survival tool, and that skill predates words as communications by many eons of evolution. But in Trump's case, he just makes up shit.

Or maybe the Clinton Media Slander Central just makes shit up.

rehajm said...

Reading and understanding nonverbal communication is taught at business schools. Did WaPo guy go to business school?

I bet WaPo guy didn't go to business school.

Big Mike said...

Um, consider the possibility that you are the stupid one.

@Althouse, obviously you've never met a Washington, DC, journalist. Arrogance is all they have -- certainly not brains.

Sprezzatura said...

Even dogs use body language to communicate. In fact the tell us that cons are good, that's why they wag their tails to the right for positive things. Left for bad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/dogs-send-message-with-their-tail-wagging/2013/11/04/e4c05952-428c-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

khesanh0802 said...

For those who want to raise their blood pressure regarding the "elites" I recommend Thomas Sowell's "The Vision of the Anointed". I got so angry and frustrated I had to put it down to pick back up later.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Get some new material PB&J. A man who over 30 years in the tough developer environment of NYC has succeeded far more than he failed and has transacted over $2 trillion in property is going to have a few squabbles. If he routinely stiffed people (like the Clinton do: They even stole Whitehouse furniture when they left because they were dead broke, remember?) then THAT would be the story. But it isn't. Out of trillions in transaction there a few hundred people owed a few million.

Meanwhile the other candidate has run a criminal enterprise from her SOS office and only TAKEN never created a damn thing. Executive experience counts and her only attempt atr being an executive is a flaming failure with millions of refugees directly resulting, destabilizing whole regions on the world map. Heckuva job Hilly!

Bobby said...

Thorley,

"Maybe not, but they probably get asked questions like: if we provide arms to Syrian rebels, how likely is it that those weapons will end up in the hands of ISIS? That’s not a recommendation per se so much as it is counseling on the potential risks vs rewards of a particular action."

It doesn't work like that, though. The intelligence briefer is not in a position to make those kinds of assessments, nor would the broader intelligence community want him to shoot from the hip like that (I'm sure you can understand why). There's a totally separate process by which the intelligence community can and does make recommendations to policymakers- this is not it.

Again, it's quite possible that the intelligence briefer's contempt for current policy penetrated his brief to a sufficient degree that a skilled body language reader like Trump (assuming he is that) was able to identify it. And it's quite plausible that Trump, in turn, interpreted that as the intelligence briefer demonstrating that the Administration had not followed the intelligence community's prescribed course of action. But that's not quite what would have actually happened, though- again- I can see where someone as inexperienced as Trump would not have been able to discern the difference.

Sprezzatura said...

Mike,

The dude isn't even top ten in NYC.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-powerful-people-in-new-york-real-estate-2011-5

Sprezzatura said...

Maybe the publisher of the New York Observer slighted DJT because he's a lame stream lib loser. What's that guy's name?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Even dogs use body language to communicate. In fact the tell us that cons are good, that's why they wag their tails to the right for positive things. Left for bad.

When I had dogs, I would always trust their reactions to people. They know! We had an acquaintance that everyone really liked, he was a hunting guide, a man's man etc etc. My dog (Chesapeake Retriever) took an immediate hate to him and would stand firmly between him and my daughter whenever he came near. The dog would glare at him the entire time he was in our home or anywhere nearby. I took a clue I was wary of the guy as well. Turned out that he had been abusing his own child and beating his wife.

Dogs KNOW. Body language and who knows what else they can sense.

Birkel said...

Let's not allow PBandJ distract from the issue at hand, just because PBandJ is a liar.

Trolls gonna troll.

Meanwhile, Obama has -- by press accounts -- demanded intelligence be shaded toward his preferred narrative. Hillary ignored intelligence as Secretary of State. Hillary put government secrets on an unsecured, private, homebrew bathroom server that was easily hacked. And the intelligence services are routinely ignored.

Mike Sylwester said...

Scientific Progressives frequently talk about Republican politicians using "dog whistles" to communicate racist signals.

Scientific Progressives claim that they too -- not just the racists -- perceive these "dog whistles".

Such "dog whistle" remarks are considered to be intellectually astute and politically correct.

Trump should have said that the intelligence briefer was communicating secret thoughts to him by means of "dog whistles". Trump wouldn't be criticized if he had said that.

RNB said...

Only enlightened liberals are able to discern the innermost thoughts and motives of others by simply looking at them.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The dude isn't even top ten in NYC.

So what? The chick isn't anything anywhere. All she knows is sucking off the government teat (except for her brief career defending child rapists of course). Her vast experience consists of failing to do anything except enrich herself and her family. No accomplishments. No great legislation. No jobs created except for sycophants and lawyers. The ONE thing she's known for constructing are elaborate self-contradictory lies built upon misdirection and smug ignorance.

She wouldn't last a day as a chief executive in the private sector. We out here actually have to follow the law.

Etienne said...

"Um is taken from mmm"

The coining of a word in imitation of a sound is called onomatopoeia (anah-mattah-pee-ah). An expression used to show thought or reflection.

If it's in the dictionary, you are free to use it. If it's not in the dictionary, you can still use it, but you have to wear red pants and have spiky accented hair.

Tlaloc said...

"How about trying to understand why Trump has been successful?"

Because he stiffs the people who work for him and got a million dollar inheritance from daddy?

Was that so hard?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

khesanh0802 said...

Body language is obvious...

Must be nice. I suck at reading body language. I'm sure that if I was in school now I would be flagged as having Aspergers.

readering said...

After the forum Christie told Trump. "See, that's exactly how they decided to close the lane to the GW Bridge without me, um, saying anything."

Etienne said...

The thing about intelligence briefings, is that the facts may not help you in any way.

For example, intelligence people told the President that if he puts an embargo on the Japanese they will attack the US.

"Well, we have to put an embargo on them, they are bad people."

"Anyway, they will warn us first if they want to attack..."

"Has anyone seen Daisy? My legs need rubbing..."

Sprezzatura said...

"Was that so hard?"

One of the coolest ways daddy bailed him out was when he had someone buy over three million in chips. Of course this did result in a $65,000 fine.

Anywho, cool stuff:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html?_r=0

Amadeus 48 said...

Help! Help! Donald Trump is on the loose! He might persuade someone to vote for him! All units to attack mode!! Help! Help!
--MSM until election day. (Yawn)

FleetUSA said...

Negotiators are aces at body language. HRC only negotiates around her thousands of lies. BH0 hates negotiating as is obvious from Obamacare and the Iranian deals to name just 2.

Trump is a negotiator par excellence and what America needs to advance. He will get what he needs out of Congress too by negotiating. That is part of the problem since BH0 won't negotiate with Congress ever since it shifted to the Republicans.

khesanh0802 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Stevenson doesn't know the meaning of intelligence operative. Trump was meeting with counterintelligence officers and specialists. Since counterintelligence is the domain of the FBI the people he met were most likely from the Justice Department and not the CIA.

Intelligence operative is a euphemism for spy. Real spies never meet with anyone in that capacity except their case officers, and even then almost never.

Peter W. Stevenson is a jerk.

Temujin said...

Aw Hell. What politician doesn't use the phrase, "The American people want....". or "I know the American people don't want...". They seem particularly fine with knowing what the American people want. Every time I hear a politician use that phrase I want to slap them. Most of them don't get out of their own bubble for years or decades (Biden? Pelosi? Reid? McConnell?). They have no clue what the American people want.

Trump was in the room, across from these people. Staring at them. Looking them over. ANY successful person in business knows how to read body language. When you negotiate with people, you are not only listening to them, you're reading them. And someone who spends his or her time negotiating spends his or her time reading people- even when not in a negotiation. Some better than others.

Journalists? Not so much. I'm beginning to think they don't read much of anything at all. Except that daily talking points memo.

khesanh0802 said...

Mollie Hemingway's comments are a pretty good take on this.

traditionalguy said...

Trump is going to Phyllis Schlafly's funeral. Nice to see loyalty in a man again.

Paul Snively said...

Um, I guess the author never—not once—sat in a poker game. Or at least, if he did, he had to cash out within the first half hour, because, as the saying goes, "If you can't identify the sucker at the table in the first half hour, it's you."

Joe said...

The author apparently assumes that those giving the intelligence briefings were trying to assume a neutral position. Is it not very possible that while those giving the briefings couldn't SAY what they felt, they could sure show it?

madAsHell said...

Body language?? Hell, they spoke their minds.

mockturtle said...

Um, I guess the author never—not once—sat in a poker game. Or at least, if he did, he had to cash out within the first half hour, because, as the saying goes, "If you can't identify the sucker at the table in the first half hour, it's you."

He knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em.
He knows when to walk away and knows when to run.

mockturtle said...

I'd love to play poker with John Kerry!

Moneyrunner said...

In the Journolist profession, as in the Intertube "Umm" = "fuck off you stupid wanker"

Moneyrunner said...

Meanwhile ObamaCare, carefully crafted by Democrats to insure all Americans would lose the health insurance they liked and could afford, is imploding.

Of course that was the intention.

Just as it was the intention of the Democrats to re-enslave black people, herd them into ghettos and break up family formation; never having forgiven them for breaking the bonds of slavery in 1865. They turned them into dependent paupers 'cause they're easier to please.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rusty said...

Moneyrunner said...
Meanwhile ObamaCare, carefully crafted by Democrats to insure all Americans would lose the health insurance they liked and could afford, is imploding.


Don't tell ARM. He has money riding on it or something. Poor guy.

khesanh0802 said...

Ah, Obamacare rears its ugly head. I was thinking this morning that, given the latest statistics, the Dems blew up the US health care system to insure about 3 million people. Makes sense to me.

mockturtle said...

My daughter's deductible will be $6K next year. And higher premiums--again.

Michael K said...

No one seems to mention that Obama has not taken his intel briefings for months at a time.

Maybe that would show in CIA briefers' body language.

khesanh0802 said...

Welcome back, Michael K! You have been missed.

MacMacConnell said...

mockturtle said...
I'd love to play poker with John Kerry!

Or sell him a car.

Michael said...

Michael K

Good to see you.

Michael said...

This is the first paragraph of the writer's auto-bio from LinkedIn:
"Peter Stevenson has been a journalist as long as he can remember. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area, Peter interned for The New York Times at the 2004 Republican and Democratic Conventions as a high school senior. Returning to the role in 2008, Peter had his first professional work published on The New York Times' Caucus blog."

Peter, in addition to being a douche, thinks he was a journalist when he was six. He has zero real world experience. None.

Michael K said...

"Michael K

Good to see you."

I'm mostly lurking until the election. Too much nastiness.

Plus, I'm in Alaska having fun.

Comanche Voter said...

Every trial lawyer, insurance salesman, used car salesman, and gold digger looking to marry a wealthy man in the USA will tell you that they are good at reading body language. And they will be right.

This what--28 year old twerp--at the Washington Post thinks people can't read body language (with varying degrees of ability)? I suspect Trump is pretty good at it after a lifetime of making, or trying to make, deals.

And I suspect that the mother of that 28 year old twerp didn't let him get out much.

Yancey Ward said...

Not all people are good at reading body language, but to try to deny the existence of it is probably the stupidest thing I will read this week. Given Trump's career, I would assume, as a default, that he is actually very good at reading it and controlling his when needed.

I would caution Stevenson to steer clear of any poker table anywhere.

dreams said...

Sometimes you can see what a person is thinking by the look on their face, you could almost recite what they're thinking. Some of us have very transparent faces.

Etienne said...

I just paid $282.60 for next years health care premium. This includes free prescriptions.

This is outrageous. I shouldn't have to pay anything! What kind of country charges their citizens for health care??

viator said...

Don't they call them tells in poker?

Michael said...

coupe

Haha. Good one.

readering said...

Duh. Of course everyone knows about reading body language. It's the idea that Trump correctly read such a thing in his first ever classified intelligence briefing that makes people's reaction, more bullshit. Of the kind that he correctly read early on many rubes just east up with a spoon.

readering said...

Damn autocorrect.

mockturtle said...

Plus, I'm in Alaska having fun.

Good for you! I spent summer of 2015 there and plan to go again next summer. Being up there amid so much natural grandeur makes the political antics down here seem irrelevant.

mockturtle said...

Coupe asserted I just paid $282.60 for next years health care premium. This includes free prescriptions.

And in which galaxy are you living?

Yancey Ward said...

I think it quite reasonable that Trump was asking direct questions of the intelligence agents who gave him the briefings, so he probably isn't relying solely on body language to infer their opinions of the present administration. Of course, it is entirely possible he is making the entire thing up, but it is also perfectly reasonable that he could judge the opinions based on non-verbal reactions to the questions he might have asked. For Stevenson to question this as even being possible is what is so fucking stupid.

Birkel said...

"You see," said readering, "body language is complete hidden during intelligence briefings. Those people are robots equipped with the newest Hillary2016 industrial strength emotion suppressors. If Donald Trump believes their exoskeletons were giving off emotion, he has been fooled by Democrat technology that many people believed could not be rendered for years to come."

Q.E.D.

Yancey Ward said...

"And in which galaxy are you living?"

There are two galaxies- one in which he is fully subsidized by the ACA exchange; and the other is where he is getting employer group insurance, and he is too stupid to know that he pays for the rest of the premium even if it doesn't show up as a line item on his pay stub.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amadeus 48 said...

Coupe--I need your plan. When I was a partner in a firm, I paid $17,000 per year in premiums and deductibles for my wife and me and the partners paid most of the cost of covering our employees. Now I am in Medicare and am paying $13,500 in premiums and deductibles for us for Part B and Part D and medigap coverage. As we know, medicare is a big loser for the Federal budget and is only going to get worse.
Based on my experience, the cost of covering someone in a fairly comprehensive medical plan (including co-pays and deductibles) is around $8,000-9,000 per person per year (obviously less for young, healthy people). Unless you are paying that, someone else (your employer; the taxpayers; etc.) is giving you a ride. I don't begrudge it if I am the one, but I hope you appreciate the lift.

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bruce Hayden said...

My question about being able to read people is, that if no one can, then why do so many professional poker players wear dark glasses when playing?

I was thinking back to my college days awhile back. For a year or so, I played a lot of bridge. Two of us started playing a bit of duplicate, and, from almost the start, would come close to winning tournaments, playing against players who had been playing competively. I was good at counting cards and figuring odds, but I am pretty sure that the big reason for success was that my partner was good at reading people. Somewhat similar to poker, in that people's "tells" often give away who has what cards. Found out recently that he ended up with a PhD in psychology. I wasn't surprised.

I do think that my partner is better at it than I am at reading people. But a lot of that is that, by now, I don't worry that much about what people think about me. She is always telling me that I am aggravating this person, or that person wants me to shut up. Maybe. I do think that this is something that, on average, women are better at than men. Maybe because they are more in danger of male violence. Maybe because of our slightly different evolution in job functions.

That a 28 year old male is clueless here is not that surprising. For the most part, someone of his negligible experience hasn't had the experience of failing. My opener was when I was maybe a decade older, when my wife at the time told me not to trust my business partner. She was right. She could, and did, read him far better than I ever could have. I just wish that she had been around a year or so earlier, and I could have avoided the losses I ended up with from that business partner. But, then, I wouldn't have had that valuable, expensive lesson.

traditionalguy said...

Authority in any room can be read from body language of the people interacting and is intentionally sent out by body language of the leader. And if there is any Hierarchy extant that seeks out the authority in the room to submit to it, it's promotion seeking General Officers.

For the laugh it caused, this AM a black Congresswoman said Trump had insulted all the brave Generals who every day risk their lives and die for us in the Military.

That has never happened unless a sniper snuck in or an Admiral was on a ship.

n.n said...

Information can be inferred, circumstantially, and deducted, with varying degrees of specificity, from observations including behavior and other external cues.

Anonymous said...

Michael said ... quoting
"Peter Stevenson has been a journalist as long as he can remember. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area, Peter interned for The New York Times at the 2004 Republican and Democratic Conventions as a high school senior. Returning to the role in 2008


As long as he can remember seems to be 8-12 years. He hasn't had time to shake off he college crap his education gave him. And for journalists that takes a decade or so longer.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Day after the Matt Lauer Forum, the Today show had on two ex-military guys, one aligned with Hillary, and General Michael Flynn (who advises and supports Trump). Here's the show's link.

http://www.nbc.com/today/video/today-thursday-sep-8-2016/3093122

Skip to the 9.5 - 12 minute mark. Lauer asks Flynn (who was in the briefing with Trump) how Trump could read the body language. Flynn tells him that it was pretty obvious to both of them.

eric said...

This is so dumb.

I imagine you don't have to be an expert in body language in order to determine someones opinion of this administration.

Trump isn't one to mince words. I imagine they would say something like, "The rise of ISIS has also meant oil fields in Syria and Iraq have stopped production. Not only have some stopped production, but others have been seized by ISIS. This is a direct result of the vacuum created by our departure."

Then trump would say something like, "So, what you're telling me is, I was right. Right? We never should have left Idea. Right?"

And the guy would laugh and smirk and say, "It's not my job to say those sorts of things."

And Trump would say, "Sure, sure. But that's what you're implying, right? That I was right and this administration is filled with morons?"

And the guy would laugh and smirk some more and say, as he is supposed to, "Really, that's not my area."

But his body language would imply something completely different from his professionalism.

They do this for us in movies all the time.

We all read body language like this. It isn't so hard.

readering said...

My favorite report on Flynn at the classified briefing:

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who attended a recent classified security briefing as an advisor to Donald Trump, interrupted intelligence officials so many times that Chris Christie had to intervene, according to a Thursday report from NBC News. The Aug. 17 briefing at the FBI’s New York bureau, which was delivered by career staffers of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, prompted repeated questions from Flynn, three anonymous sources familiar with the matter told NBC. The interruptions were enough to prompt the New Jersey governor, who also attended the briefing as a Trump adviser, to touch Flynn's arm in an effort to calm the general down, one source said.

walter said...

the intelligence officials briefing him "were not happy" because "our leaders did not follow what they were recommending."
--
A world of difference between "reading" the first vs the latter via body language.

virgil xenophon said...

Thought I'd way in late to agree with most everyone (big surprise, I know) about body language. Like DBQ I was for many years both in the money mgt business and insurance business and is she ever right, She's also right about dogs. Our Chow hated our contractor with a passion and, sure enough, he tried to screw us on cost receipts for materials, etc. And Bruce Hayden is right about wives. Women not only have better instincts about this sort of thing than males, but they are usually very protective of their husbands as well..

LOL@Comanche Voter@12:23. ALL so very true!

Khesanh0802: EVERY SINGLE PERSON in America should read Sowells "Vision of the Anointed." (Except, of course, the self-anointed ones, who wouldn't give it the time of day)

JaimeRoberto said...

Um, body language is unimportant. That's why they teach you not to slouch in your chair during a job interview.

While policy recommendations aren't in the CIA charter, if you read the history of the CIA you'll find out they made policy quite a bit.

Rusty said...

coupe said...
I just paid $282.60 for next years health care premium. This includes free prescriptions.

This is outrageous. I shouldn't have to pay anything! What kind of country charges their citizens for health care??

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-obamacare-fail-health-care-insurance-medicine-0911-jm-20160909-story.html

Not much longer.

Birches said...

Does our Coastal Media Elite really think this line of attack is working? "All we have to do is keep mocking DJT for the most inane reasons and then, THEN the American people will join our side."

Let his words hang him. Stop piling on with such condescension. It doesn't work.

walter said...

Sure Virgil,
Maybe the most efficient way to screen job applicants is to stick them in a room with a "reader" certified pet and have women observe the interaction.

Michael K said...

" Being up there amid so much natural grandeur makes the political antics down here seem irrelevant."

Lots of Trump signs. Lots. Also lots of Johnson radio ads.

coupe, sorry to hear about your financial problems that put you in the high subsidy category.

Bobby said...

Walter @ 2:26 PM nails it.

JamieRoberto,

"While policy recommendations aren't in the CIA charter, if you read the history of the CIA you'll find out they made policy quite a bit."

Again, I think people are missing the not-so-subtle distinction between [1] the CIA or the intelligence community writ large (and, just for the record, the Director of National Intelligence oversees the IC briefing program to the President and NSC) and [2] the individual intelligence briefer. The former make policy recommendations all the time and it is absolutely part of their mandate; the latter is just an intelligence briefer and doesn't have the authorization or the background to make policy recommendations.

It's like we all know and agree that the New England Patriots will kick footballs as part of their normal game, but you'd all implicitly understand that does not mean that Tom Brady kicks field goals and if someone tried telling you otherwise you'd know they didn't quite understand the game of football.

Unknown said...

readering said...

I know because i've been watching Trump talking out of his, um, ass for the past 15 months and this sounded like the most Trumpian thing ever.


Actually, the most Trumpian thing ever is Hillary saying that she knows what ISIS is praying for (for Trump to be elected). However, even the media could not make her Trumpian statement redound to his detriment, so maybe it is therefore not eligible for your contest.

Drew said...

Anyone who is a parent of a teenager, much less more than one teenager is a Pro at reading body language.
If you are in the corporate world, it gets enhanced even more.

dc said...

The intel officer that briefed Trump just received his new assignment. A place called Allepo. Anybody know where that is?

readering said...

RF: Not eligible. Just typical Clinton tone-deafness.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Drew said...

Anyone who is a parent of a teenager, much less more than one teenager is a Pro at reading body language.

I wish it were that easy. I've just had a son pass through his teenage years. I suck at reading body language. I've caught him in lies by actually checking up on verifiable facts, without ever being able to detect anything in his body language. Without some verifiable fact, I have nothing to go on.

Etienne said...

mockturtle said......And in which galaxy are you living?

I'm on Tricare Prime

I was being flippant. It irks me that government retiree's get a special deal. Why can't all Americans have Tricare? Especially when I was allowed to retire after only 20 years employment.

Instead of spending billions on nuclear weapons and NATO, we could easily provide doctors with a steady pool of insured peasants.

The doctors and drug companies can get rich on the rich, but fill their calendar with subsidized clientele who make $30k or less a year.

Subsidizing the peasants is the heart of being a Progressive. A “progressive” meaning those who focus on using government power to make large institutions operate socially, instead of only for profit.

The days of capitalism are over. The industrial revolution is over, the middle-class is dead, and all that is left is the distribution of income to the peasants.

Gk1 said...

I thought it was funny in that everytime Trump speaks with an intelligence briefer that the substance is leaked within minutes of the meeting. I doubt its Trump blabbing. Wasn't there some leak a few weeks ago where supposedly Trump asked the briefers why we would couldn't use nukes? So forgive me if I don't put a lot of stock in what the professionals are saying. If they were really professionals, they could keep their trap shut after talking to Trump.

Billy Oblivion said...

RE: Reading people.

Read the book "Left of Bang".

Roy Lofquist said...

There's nobody I'd rather see at the poker table than a guy who's read a book about "tells". They're just begging to be skinned.

mockturtle said...

@Michael K Lots of Trump signs. Lots. Also lots of Johnson radio ads.

Good to know! Alaskans have pretty good sense. Actually, I've seen quite a few Trump signs here in the Pacific NW this past summer. They have all been in rural areas, though, and we know that it's the urban area votes that count. Funny...I have not seen even ONE Hillary signs. Still quite a few for Bernie and an occasional Johnson and even Stein.

Joe said...

"interrupted intelligence officials so many times"

Is this supposed to be a criticism? One thing that pisses me off when talking to managers, vice-presidents and other leadership of the companies for which I work is when they don't ask questions.

I recently worked at an absolute disaster of a company. I'm still amazed at how incurious the leadership of the company was from technical lead on up. Of course, they went one step further and fired anyone who asked too many questions or who gave too many answers (seriously, not an exaggeration. For the curious, the company has an almost overwhelming market share in their sector for historical reasons, so they can get away with this kind of nonsense, for now.)

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
coupe, sorry to hear about your financial problems that put you in the high subsidy category.


Who hasn't missed MK's classless contributions?


M Jordan said...

It is impossible to separate verbal language from body language. You cannot say a word without using inflection, pitch, speed, etc. If you attempt to strip spoken words of their para-language, you get a 1950's robot voice that is itself filled with nonverbal parasites. Written language has less nonverbal cues going on but even it is filled with a metalanguage: the choice of words, the location of them, the punctuation, the spelling ... they all contribute to a more complex message.

Good communicators intuit this. It's actually what makes then good communicators. Trump does it automatically. He reads people. His statement about the generals is an example of this.

Anonymous said...

"Who hasn't missed MK's classless contributions?"

I haven't missed him a bit, why is he back? I thought he was going to stay away because there were too many unknowns. We knew he wouldn't stay away .

Anonymous said...

General Flynn, who hobnobs with Putin. Why was he allowed in a security briefing?!

Sprezzatura said...

""Who hasn't missed MK's classless contributions?"

I haven't missed him a bit, why is he back? I thought he was going to stay away because there were too many unknowns. We knew he wouldn't stay away ."

I was also scratch my head when I've saw the sorta-broken-hearted comments related to missing MK.

I don't recall any of his comments, good or bad: idunno. But, after seeing that folks say he's missed, I did decide to take better note if he showed up again. Now I'm thinking that maybe I never paid attention to him because there was no there there. Anywho, if he's around at some point, I'll take a look.

grackle said...

I know because i've been watching Trump talking out of his, um, ass for the past 15 months and this sounded like the most Trumpian thing ever.

“Past 15 months?” Then the commentor must have seen Trump kick the “ass” of every opponent he faced, setting a record for voter turnout in the process. Evidently what the commentor saw coming out of Trump’s ass was pure gold.

On the other hand we have Hillary, about who at her brief appearance after her security briefing I kept thinking, “Better not cough.” Her voice was low and droning, eyes downcast at her notes much of the time. Somewhere near the beginning I saw her throat tighten, heard her voice crack slightly, saw her swallow hard a couple times and I thought, “Uh-oh.” But she forged on in that low voice without incident.

Overall she seemed lethargic, maybe even drugged. Cough suppression medication? She only perked up on that final question where she attacked Trump.

Sprezzatura said...

I was scratching my head when I saw the sorta-broken-hearted comments related to missing MK.

narciso said...

and Stay Puft's awareness of intelligence had him supporting the syrian rebels, appointing a Hamas lawyer to the state supreme court, of course, he was clearly the likely source of the leak, they don't elaborate what questions general flynn asked,

among possible choices, what is the threat environment re islamic state, what degree of enrichment are the mullahs pursuing, what further proliferation are the north koreans engaging in.

Rusty said...

Hiya doc.

Anonymous said...

PB&J,
He's the guy who would lament about all the Unknows being allowed to comment and ask any liberal (when they posted a comment for the first time that day) if their shift at McDonalds was over. He assumed anyone he was having a argument with which was every liberal who ever commented didn't have as good of a living standard as he did, without knowing a thing about them. He is a nasty one, it was better when he was gone, IMO. I wish he would've stayed away

walter said...

Stick around, MK. If only to tweak PBJ and ARM ;)

Anonymous said...

Also MK was the one who would go apeshit if any commenter came along and had a private profile page, as if it was any of his business.

Anonymous said...

MK couldn't handle the blowback, that's why he left.

walter said...

The unknown(s) no happy time.

Amadeus 48 said...

To all the Unknowns--On the internet, no one knows you are a dog.

Gospace said...

TRICARE Prime isn't available where I live. I have about $4300/year deducted from my pay for family health insurance. $1300.00 more then the TRICARE Standard catastrophic cap. A cap except of course for non-participating providers or non-covered procedures, which don't count towards the cap. No military pharmacies nearby, so prescriptions are from a chain drugstore. Between the two coverages, my out of pocket costs are almost zero during the course of a year. I don't worry about cost shares, non-covered procedures, or whether of not my provider is in the system.

You didn't mention the co-pays. The limited doctor network. The requirement to get a referral or specialist visits cost more. Or the other drawbacks of TRICARE Prime. TRICARE Prime is great. If you live in an area that has it. And stay within the provider network.

I'll keep paying for insurance, and using both TRICARE and the one I pay for. The TRICARE I've already paid for with 21 years of service. Which includes 10 years of sea duty. Minimum of 56 hours a week watchstanding underway, without overtime compensation. Plus training and drills. Add at least another 10 hours. 3 or 4 section inport duty during that time. So every 3rd or 4th day while in home port got to spend 24 hours on board. Oh, wait, 32 counting the next work day. If it only went 8 hours. Don't know which service you were in, but I'll have to take your word that you didn't earn it. Anyone with loads of sea time, or lots of deployments, or who got shot at earned it.

Dude1394 said...

Wow what a tremendously stupid article. Non-verbal communication is what, at the low-scale 55% of communication.

Jason said...

In the intelligence field, HUMINT types train a great deal on reading nonverbal cues, body language and micro-expressions.

So do professional salespeople, as DBQ astutely points out above.

This little twit of a reporter needs to get out more. I commanded 25 year old HUMINT interrogators who could eat his ass for lunch.

Bruce Hayden said...

Crooked Hillary shill Unknown doesn't remember MK, because he appears to be here merely to disrupt discussions that are too hard on his heroine. And PB&J seems to come around here mostly during political campaigns. At least some of his comments don't appear to be straight from the Clinton campaign, like most of Unknown's do. Dr K has been around here for years as one of the stronger contributors. Which neither the Clinton toady Unknown nor PB&J are. We shall see which of the three of them are contributing in 2017, after the Clinton campaign money runs out. My bet is on the good doctor.

Kirk Parker said...

Good grief with the MK-bashing, especially from those who--unlike Michael--aren't posting under their real names and thus we have no idea who or what they really are.

Bad Lieutenant said...

+1 Welcome back Doc!

Unknown #55 is definitely Inga. Inga, or Unknown #55 if you prefer the mask, are you foreign born?

BTW the jig is up on Unknowns. The Dems have either resorted to a stockpile of burner accounts, or are having people wipe, possibly rename, and unhide profiles to avoid easy detection.