Elections

Playing dumb (on purpose)

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
Font Size:

Earlier today I pondered why Vice President Joe Biden has become what I deemed the “absent-minded grandfather” of the Obama administration. While perhaps not an explicit strategy, this suggests politicians often cast themselves as a sort of “everyman.” Biden is hardly alone in advancing this stereotype.

In a recent interview (listen to our full conversation here), author Sam Leith reflected on the tendency of President Obama (and Governor Mitt Romney) — both obviously intelligent men — to utilize a hesitation — a sort of fake stutter — that borders on a false front as a rhetorical device when speaking in public:

It’s appealing because hesitation makes it look like you’re thinking on your feet.

It makes it look like you’re thinking hard about what you’re saying and you’re being cautious and not just sounding off. Anything that makes it look like you’re actually being honest and if you look like you’re really thinking as you give the speech, that will make it look like you’re honest because you think:

“He hasn’t just prepared some flim-flam. He’s actually conscientiously trying to say what he thinks and thinking hard about it.”

That has an affect in making you sound honest.

It’s why, weirdly, we’re discussing Obama’s high style being possibly disadvantageous to him. George W. Bush’s inarticulacy didn’t do him nearly as much harm as liberals would have liked. Like Forest Gump, if you seem to be artless, if you seem to not be calculating and foxy and too clever by half, people think you’re honest. If you’re struggling to get the sense out, how could he possibly be deceiving us? That’s why, for instance, the silver tongue devil. People mistrust someone who’s too smooth. People mistrust the smooth talking used car salesman…

Hesitation makes you look less slick.

Or to paraphrase Giraudoux, once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.