
Image from: http://good-wallpapers.com/
So There has been a lot of talk about the Anthony Weiner-Gate.
Below I will give a short analysis of the interview he gave on 1/6/2011, before his confession press conference on 6/6/2011.
Unfortunately I can't include the clip on the blog, however you can watch the interview here.
To dive straight into the matter, on the first question, if he has send the picture to the college student, he has a little smile on his face. When answering the question he looks away down.
On the simple question: "Is this you" (referring to the man in the picture) he avoids the question, (a simple yes or no would be sufficient) and he distances himself by using we a lot instead of I. When he says "I've seen it", again that same smile.
Then he rattles on and on about photo manipulation, witch creates another diversion and an escape route if something goes south. In his sentences he also tries to make it seem like a minor unimportant case by saying "Look this has turned into an international who's done it", with this he means that it should be left alone as it is unimportant.
He is also trying to make jokes the entire interview, for instance at 0:54, 1:20 etc.
In the clip at 2:32, when asked if there are pictures like the one in question, he again avoids the question.
3 minutes in the interview, when asked if the police or FBI was informed, the expressions on his face change from confusion, to sadness, to fear, and frustration. After all these expressions, he again tries to make the case sound unimportant by calling it 'spam' and 'a joke'.
After this he tries to give another reason why the police isn't contacted, by saying the investigation will be funded by the the tax payers etc.
4 minutes into the interview, when the word lawyers is dropped, his facial expression says sadness and fear, which indicates that he hopes this whole case is dropped and just disappears.
Around 4:12 he tries to make a connection to the 'general public' by saying he's a citizen and a guy on twitter. Directly trying to flatter the interviewer (Wolf Blitzer: @wolfblitzercnn) by complementing him on his great Twitter account.
The distancing himself from the topic directly after it by using his complete name in a sentence concerning him, "I have to say, it doesn't necessarily mean that because it happened to Anthony Weiner..." and then when he talks over a different topic (watching a federal investigation) he uses I 'I watched a federal investigation'. He also tries to make the case sound like a waste of money, by implying that a simple investigation costs over a million dollars. By doing that manipulation he tries to make the posting of the image sound unimportant and non-essential.
An interesting thing is he not only tries to distance himself from the case, he also creates a distance between himself and the woman in question, by referring to her as: "this woman" and "this person". Trying to reestablish the fact that she is 'just' one of his 45.000 followers.
Although people try to hide the truth it will come out eventually and bite them in the a$$. As this case did, and Senator Anthony Weiner confessed, and by doing so he threw away his career and chance to be the next mayor of New York. In the near future he probably has to resign, once the federal investigation which has been launched, finds out some of his personal actions were done with campaign money. His wife may not divorce him right now, but it will happen, because although the contact was purely online (according to Weiner), it's still cheating (because the foundations of trust is compromised). But that's another topic for another time.
So that was just a little video observation of how facial expressions and psychological effects and wordplay can uncover the truth without telling it, hope you enjoyed it.
You can leave your comments in the box below.
