Bush: Natural born liar

I've been pretty busy the last few days, so I've struggled to keep the blog going, but Michelle at Profesora Abstraida got me thinking the other day with her post of these pictures of Bush talking recently about Social Security in Falls Church, Va (originally posted on Yahoo):


I have to say I'm really impressed. I've never seen Bush look quite so completely out of his freakin' mind! It's probably time to update that collection of side-by-side Bush or chimp pictures from the 2000 election.

So now the question is, why does Bush look so completely whacked?

I've questioned before on this blog and elsewhere, has Bush ever accomplished anything in his life without lying? Which got me to thinking, does Bush's speech and body language betray that he's lying?

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has some helpful hints which suggest that, yes, Bush may be showing that he's not being straight with the American people (emphasis added):

Just think about what happens to you when you lie. Your heartbeat increases, your rate of breathing increases, the pitch of your voice might increase. You stutter. You sweat. You start making all sorts of incongruous facial expressions and body movements in a desperate attempt to seem believable and to suppress what you are really thinking.

Verbal clues:

...longer pauses, stutters and slower speech - and if your ear is really good, a higher pitch....There are fewer details, fewer quotes.

Facial expressions:

When someone is lying, they will do one of three things. They might try to show emotion when they have none. They might try to show no emotion - the poker face - when they are feeling some. Or they might try to mask one emotion with another. All of these tactics are difficult because the liar will have to remember what parts of the face to move in order to give the impression of real emotion.

Look for the timing of the facial expressions - if they are not in sync with what the person is saying, they might be lying.

There is also something [termed] "micro-expressions". These are a "squelched fragment of a facial expression" which the person has only just managed to control, and might possibly indicate what they are really feeling.

Body language:

Liars often behave in subtly abnormal ways because they are under unusual emotional strain and mental stress to make the lie sound believable, and it's these abnormalities that can give them away.

Consider these possibilities, then for fun, check out this cool variant on the Bush or chimp thing.