Candidates in Mute

James Wolcott raises an interesting point, having watched Bush's acceptance speech at the GOP convention last week with the sound off.

Recently, I've happened to catch both Kerry and Bush with the set muted, then later uniting sound and video, and the contrast is night and day. Bush often seems alternately tired, depressed, desperate, macho, challenged, and clearly just going through the motions. Sometimes, he behaves like he's eager to get re-elected (ahem) and other times, it's like, "When's my next vacation? It's been a couple weeks since I had one." Turn on audio, and there's a sharp contrast between his physical affect and his words. The words might sound aggressive and assured, but his body isn't delivering the same message.

Do Kerry though and there is not this sharp clash between Kerry in mute and Kerry speaking. Treebeard comparisons aside, his body and speech seem in sync.

Draw from that what you will, but definitely watch Bush's body language. It's telling. I don't think I've seen this much diversion between words and body language since Nixon in my youth.