Demeanor under fire
During the Kavanaugh hearings, one of the things that came in for a lot of criticism and even ridicule on the left was Kavanaugh’s emotionality. But his affect was completely understandable for someone in his position, someone who was falsely and publicly accused of acts that could not be definitely disproved and could ruin his career (and his life, and that of his family) when he was seemingly at the peak of said career. Under the circumstances, Kavanaugh was probably more restrained than most people would be.
And yet it’s true that he wasn’t the very model of cool calm and collected. And that became a Thing: his demeanor is so heated it proves he’s guilty.
There’s no logic whatsoever to that, of course. It’s just a ploy. And I assure you that, had Kavanaugh’s demeanor been calm, he would have been criticized for not being outraged in the way an innocent man would have been outraged. It’s a lose/lose situation.
Would some people have been able to stay calm? Probably, but just a small number—a number so very small and a group unusual enough that in the case of Lindy Chamberlain, her calm demeanor in the face of a false accusation that she had killed her daughter probably helped send her to prison (see this for a review of the case, if you’ve forgotten or have never heard of it).
And although staying calm in the face of turmoil and strife is something one wants in a leader or a judge, staying calm all the time and keeping one’s mouth shut and a neutral expression on one’s face is not always possible—or even desirable—when that leader is him or herself accused of terrible crimes. Appropriate outrage has a definite place, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the dispatch of one’s duties.
Which brings us to Trump and one of the games that the press and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) were playing with him:
The Left and the media were never willing to credit the idea that Trump sincerely believed that he was being treated unfairly — because he was…
Trump is a creature of the media and cares a lot about what is said of him. So imagine him sitting in the White House and watching the media constantly suggest that a smoking-gun Russia-collusion revelation is just over the horizon, that the walls are closing in, that he might be guilty of one of the worst political crimes committed in the history of the republic — and all the while knowing that it wasn’t true.
It’s very easy to be relaxed about someone else’s reputation. We saw this during the Kavanaugh controversy when progressives were outraged that Brett Kavanaugh got emotional about being falsely accused of gang rape. Trump, apparently, was supposed to be cool and nonplussed about being accused of treason.
Of course, he wasn’t, and got caught in an endless feedback loop with the press. He’d be presumed guilty in the coverage, he’d lash out, and then commentators would take his reaction as further evidence he was guilty. For two long years.…
It didn’t occur to anyone that he might be acting out of a sense of aggrieved (although often self-defeating) innocence.
Oh, really? I don’t think they’re that stupid. Of course it occurred to them. And I can assure you that if and when someone on their side is similarly smeared and reacts by behaving in an outraged manner, the press will consider it normal and an indication of innocence.
I don’t think I’ve ever, either in my writings here or in my private life, considered someone’s angry demeanor at being accused of something to be evidence of that person’s guilt. Nor do I assume that calmness is evidence of guilt either—people have different temperaments and react differently to similar situations. I consider evidence to be evidence of guilt. And although a person’s demeanor can indicate guilt, appropriate emotions should not lead people to conclude guilt, and people are also notorious for misjudging guilt/innocence based on demeanor.
What was done to Trump by the press was part of their gotcha game, that’s all. They either felt he was guilty and therefore everything he did or said was evidence of guilt, or they didn’t think he was guilty (or weren’t sure) but had no hesitation to be part of a frame-up anyway.
Do any of them have even the least bit of shame at how their actions demonstrate a depraved character? I suspect not. They rationalize evil actions and justify them by their faith in the worthiness of the ends sought. And, if support for infanticide isn’t evil, then nothing can qualify as evil.
“Some men need killing” etched on the tombstone of gunslinger Clay Allison
Thank you Lindsey Graham 2.0 for your spirited outrage at the calumny.
As soon as I read demeanor, I thought of the Covington student Sandmann.
Cool and calm the entire trial by drumbeat.
And how that was misinterpreted.
Agree that arguments about ‘demeanor’ as indicative of much of anything are largely humbug. I have heard one sensible exception. Lt. Joe Kenda (the retired homicide detective from Colorado Springs whose old cases are dramatized in a serial on ID) has said that one thing you look for in a possible suspect is some indication that they are surprised by information you impart to them. For example, if someone’s death isn’t a piece of information that’s been publicly disseminated or been disseminated within a certain social circle, that a possible suspect is not surprised when you so inform them is consistent with the thesis that the person you’re interviewing was present when the deceased was killed.
When my oldest was in kindergarten, he spun an amazing yarn to the “handler”of McGruff the Crime Dog, a visiting puppet brought to his classroom to talk about child abuse (no, I was not notified that would be happening… but that’s another story). He claimed his dad was abusing him and his baby sister in various ways, including locking him in a box and sticking his sister’s finger in electrical outlets. Shocked, the puppeteer told his teacher, and my son told his teacher the same story. Shocked, the teacher told the principal. My son repeated the story. Shocked, the principal called CPS. I should mention that we never even spanked.
The first I heard of it was the CPS person coming up to my front door that day. She told me of my son’s allegations and inspected the house, the baby, me, and unfortunately the 60 empty beer bottles on the dining room table (I’m a home brewer and was getting ready to bottle a batch, which I explained in possibly the shakiest voice I’ve ever used). At the end of her inspection, she basically patted my hand and said she had much bigger fish to fry than our case, but for the record, she did need to do a phone interview with my husband.
Then she left, and I called my husband to warm him of what was coming. That evening, he told me how it had gone; he had challenged her at every turn, he said: had she found the box we supposedly locked our son in? Any signs of burns or other injury on our daughter? And I blew a gasket, terrified that he had made her mad and now she was going to come after him, removing our kids from us “for their safety” while the investigation went forward.
Thankfully she had told me the absolute truth and seemed to be a careful professional with clear cases of abuse on her docket; the entire record was expunged six months later per Texas law. But I was petrified that my husband’s “inappropriate” demeanor was going to cost us our children.
In Kavanaugh’s case, there was a don’t know whether to laugh or cry aspect to the controversy. Here you have a U.S. Senator undertaking form criticism of BK’s 1982 appointment calendar. Here you have a businessman from the Bay Area who shared a dormitory suite with BK and another person for a four month period concluding in January 1984 still so enraged consequent to petty disputes with those two that he makes a public spectacle out of himself and tosses in accusations which are scarcely credible.*
* How well do you recall inside slang used by people you haven’t spoken to in 35 years? If you’re a contemporary of James Risch and were situated in similar social circumstances at that time, how common was discussion of anal sex in your social circle? If you were a resident of the BosWash corridor in 1983 and living in similar social circumstances to James Risch, did you ever hear the words ‘boof’ or ‘devil’s triangle’? And if you never heard them, isn’t that evidence toward the thesis that Risch’s contention that they were well understood sexual slang is tommyrot?
Gotcha. Like those 2 Sarah Palin vp candidate interviews. Republicans actually bought the editing on that one.
We need to define demeanor. Do you mean something like this?
https://nypost.com/2016/10/18/sotomayor-wanted-to-beat-scalia-with-a-baseball-bat/
US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a plea for public civility during a speech in Minnesota — then admitted that she often wanted to bash her late conservative colleague, Antonin Scalia, over the head with a baseball bat.
(5) Missteps. I’m sure many were hoping, or praying to mother earth Gaia, that their overheated rhetoric and false accusations would drive Trump into some major missteps.
TommyJay on March 27, 2019 at 4:40 pm at 4:40 pm said:
(5) Missteps. I’m sure many were hoping, or praying to mother earth Gaia, that their overheated rhetoric and false accusations would drive Trump into some major missteps.
You got your in crowd wrong. The alien worshipers aren’t praying to Gaia for Leftists.
There is an ancient general-strategic solution/resolution to the “demeanor matter”, and/but it is the modern military deportment. Aka, “Shields up”. (1.)
Although most of the populace today has less ‘connection’ with military culture than they do with serious church-culture, most Americans do have a shared familiarity with one particular well-developed example of the military demeanor, and that is Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin.
Furthermore, we have collectively watched Putin’s militaristic demeanor “evolve” considerably over the years … which is also quite instructive. [The reason his affect is deemed offensive in our contemporary society, is that very close versions of it became the stereotype of Germanic Officers of a particular now-criminal Party/Regime … but previously the same affect had been held in high-esteem, and was prestigious in Western, Liberal, Democratic cultures (and still is, in Russia).]
As a member of the Navy, in high-tech & high-performance roles, I saw and worked with a rather high percentage of Brian Kavenaugh-types. The ol’-time stiff-upper-lip serves them – and their authorities – quite well. Of course, this demeanor would be inappropriate & counterproductive [‘Up yers with a rubber hose, Mate!’, without uttering a word] before a Senate confirmation hearing. [William F. Buckley eruditely verbalized it, for those who were there … but his delivery would be even more inappropriate!]
Judge Kavenaugh has the temperament of what we call a wuss, a nerd, a dweeb .. indeed, a choir-boy. Like gays (also over-represented in my Navy experience (and sometimes confused with each other..)) they exhibit a strong tendency to respond to challenging roles. Often mocked for their seeming lack of manliness … in his control-while-pushed-hard, the SCOTUS nominee showed they are on the contrary much tougher than Yogi’s average Bear, in the face of sustained, focused opprobrium. A ‘Rodney Dangerfield’ adversity that is a core part their normal lives.
Or … we could deal instead with the demeanor of some Used Car Salesman, or yet-another Boardroom CEO, or … But not to worry: our Brian has been ‘handling it’ since he hit puberty.
(1.) Learning Patterns & Temperament Styles, by Keith Golay
To my mind, the gold standard for “demeanor under fire” (figurative “fire,” of course) is J. Clarence Thomas during and in his speech at the end of his Senate confirmation hearings. Words cannot due justice to his self-control, and his passionate but supremely well-controlled outrage and anger at his tormenters during his thorough, dignified, and well-stated closing speech.
.
Somebody wrote that Nick Sandemann was the only adult in the room at the Lincoln Memorial hazing. “It is difficult to argue” with that sentiment.
.
I will now open my big fat mouth. (Wow, there’s a change! NOT.) I thought J. Kavanaugh looked to be near tears during the worst of his ordeal. I thought that made him look like a whiny brat.
I did NOT think that he was a whiny brat, or that that description would be an accurate appraisal of either his temperament or his character. I thought it actually represented the frustration of someone who could see that he was in a position where he could not possibly say anything that would end his utterly unjust torture by his, yes, tormentors.
I could see also that he was trying not to walk into any minefields, which would be a lesson well learned during his legal career. To some of those in the (C-Span or UT) audience, this might have made him seem evasive.
But think of what the inquisitors were saying and how they were behaving! I admit to having been shocked and outraged myself.
I think Brett Kavanaugh deserves a medal for not having physically clocked a bunch of those A-H’s. And at the end, I would have at least called them by the names they deserved!
Here endeth latest rant.
I will say, as I often have, that I do not like Trump’s demeanor in some respects. On the other hand I completely understood why he was frustrated, outraged, and to put it politely–pissed off. Could he have expressed his outrage better? Possibly. Probably. But, who among us could predict with certainty how we would have reacted to the travesty that was inflicted on him from multiple directions, and for an extended period of time?
My hope at this point is that the perpetrators of the outrages we have witnessed over the past two plus years will pay a price; and that the President can now get on with the huge task of bringing the Deep State to heel.
if i dont put this up, i will lose it
there will be a lot of argument about pelosi and her statements
and comparing to ken starr forgetting that the house voted to release his work by a wide margin….
here is ken starr himself on the matter
for fun, here is Ken Starr telling us what Mueller can do in an article he wrote for the Atlantic:
Under the regulations that governed his appointment and now guide his final
acts, Mueller is to provide a confidential report to one person only:
the attorney general. The regulations, which were promulgated during the
final months of the Clinton administration, do not contemplate any sort
of report sent directly from the special counsel to Congress or the
general public. To the contrary, the regulations call upon the attorney
general, William Barr, to receive the confidential report and then do
two things: First, to notify Congress of the investigation’s completion
and, second, to provide an explanation for certain specifically
enumerated actions. There is no requirement for aBarr-edited version of
the Mueller report. In short, there may be no Mueller report at all,
save for the confidential document that lands on Barr’s desk. And these
same regulations do not require the attorney general to simply pass
along a confidential reportthat may very well contain unflattering
information about one or more individuals. Including the
president.
thanks..
said that one thing you look for in a possible suspect is some indication that they are surprised by information you impart to them.
“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.”
–Charles Dickens
I watch that, too. I just finished Ann Rule’s book on the Green River Killer. He passed two polygraphs during the time he was a suspect but free.
“Why are you hitting yourself?” That’s all it was. The media is all playground ethics and behavior at this point.
What Bonderenka said.
By the way Neo, you as a lawyer have an opportunity to dismantle that great legal scholar Joe Biden. As part of his imaginary history he cannot even get the name of the ostensibly relevant court right.
Old Joe:
Yeah? Except the court he is attempting to reference in his fable was called “Common Pleas”; and one of the the most notable things about that period of English legal history was the statutory mandate that the English language be henceforth used in English law courts, instead of French. That latter, was so the parties to the actions could actually understand what was being said.
As for the rulings of the Common Pleas courts of the late 14th century, although I am no expert in that period and my studies date back to a generation ago, I recall no principle of even Norman-French law in England that made a wife chattel to be legally killed or disposed of at will.
And certainly, English sensibilities and English domestic related laws prior to the Norman Conquest were in some ways very much more liberal and enlightened than those rooted in feudal conceptions.
From a not particularly enthusiastic survey, which still admits that ….
http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/reference/essays/women-and-law/
No man has a right to chastise his woman with a rod thicker than the circumference of his thumb.
No one can find where that law or ruling is supposed to be. It’s an unfounded rumor from 1782.
Figures that Biden would cite a fictional ruling from a court he can’t name.
“This was Watergate without the break-in.” This is not true. This all started in much the same way as Watergate with the same motives, to stop the opposition but the opposition WAS Trump and the break-in was private actors caught running illegal queries in an NSA database. Mike Rogers was the night watchman, just like the old David Steinberg Watergate comedy routine. He blew the whistle. Then began the cover-up. Dan Bongino is the only one who seems to take this all the way back to its origin…(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aevtHHULag&t=582s)
Until I heard that “thickness” interpretation, I had always assumed that the “rule of thumb” was the use of the thumb as a different unit of measurement.
Holding up your thumb to gauge the size of something.
In a similar sense that a cubit was from the elbow to the finger.
Biden is bad enough without his apology tour. All you have to see are the photos and videos of him putting his hands on women who clearly are uncomfortable. Add to that, the stories of his swimming naked in front of female Secret Service agents,
He is a creep. Plus, of course, a serial plagiarizer.
Compare and contrast the reactions of Trump and Smollett. Trump earned his victory lap.
The lying Dems were sure that Trump was so stupid he would make a criminal mistake, and be caught, so that it wouldn’t really matter if there had been collusion or not.
Most did know that Hillary was guilty, but was let off (connections! and future!), part of the in-crowd, the PC-Klan.
I’m hoping Trump will push Barr to indict more of the Dem criminals, with further investigations following the IG notes. The IG did not claim criminal intent, yet there were criminal actions.
Trump mentioned that he could not do much while Mueller was investigating, because most actions could be interpreted as “obstruction of justice”. I’m certainly now one of those who are “out for blood” of the all the deep state criminals.
Another rumor is that Mueller was a set-up against the deep state, giving them the ropes to hang themselves. I give this only a 10% chance, but that’s higher than I thought for Trump being brought up on collusion. Tho I feared there were other skeletons that would be found out.
Were the Dems really afraid that Trump was with the Russians, or were they just attacking Trump?
a) they were afraid — so now they’re happy to hear NO Trump collusion
b) they just wanted to attack – so now they’re sad to hear NO Trump collusion.
This reaction is not “demeanor”, but it’s an indication of actual reasons to be supporting the witch hunt.
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