Task Force Review

Time to take the task force to task. Yesterday (Friday) was the first public briefing in two months for Vice-President Pence's Coronavirus Task Force. It was, to say the least, interesting.

While it's true that I read and researched a fair amount of non-verbal and language analyses back in the day, that day was 40 years ago when Edward Hall was the only semi-popular human spacing and non-verbal science author. I'm about three decades out of touch with anything current, including FBI non-verbal specialists moonlighting as consultants for professional poker players. But I'll take a crack at analyzing yesterday's task force briefing, especially since about half of my observations are missing from popular media analyses.

Okay, where to start? Well, first of all, President Trump was absent. As I stated in previous entries, this means that things aren't going well. President Trump is one of those dudes who takes victory laps before running races. If he ain't getting a ribbon, he ain't running the race. Well, in the case of the current pandemic scorecards, he is not in possession of any ribbons. Thus, his absence was eminently predictable and indicates that the U.S. is in the proverbial deep water without a paddle.

Next, Mike Pence. I'm hoping some credentialed language experts chime in and do the analytic legwork. I've watched about half of the task force briefings, and I have never heard Pence cram so many "Umms" into such a brief statement. Every sentence contained an "umm" or a pause worthy of William Shatner. Normally, from what I'd seen, Pence doesn't speak like this. What does it suggest to me? It suggests that he was sticking to a script, and the script was something he was having a hard time selling. Pence bent over backwards to use very specific contortionist criteria to make the case that things were going to hell in "only" 16 states.

National media has highlighted the gaping black hole of what Pence did not say, namely that the CDC recommends masks. How can you tick off a list of CDC recommendations and try to unobtrusively skip "wearing masks?" In terms of subtlety, may as well bang the giant cymbal from The Gong Show. Pence, dubbed "Pinocchio Pence" by David Smith of the UK Guardian after the performance, didn't reveal any hint or outline of a federal plan, but instead recommended the American public pray. Four times. He told Americans to pray four times. I cannot believe that during the Q&A nobody asked Pence about the statistics for pandemic prayer efficacy.

Next is Dr. Birx. I think that Dr. Birx is broken. When the administration pulls her string, she talks too fast, like your sister's Talking Barbie that's been bludgeoned with a ball-peen hammer. I have never heard Dr. Birx talk that fast. She normally jams in quite a few words-per-minute, but this was ridiculous. She blew through charts demonstrating how bad things are in bright red states, and then presented county-by-county, color-coded stuff, evidently in service of rendering swaths of the bad maps in something other than red. Dr. Birx makes a very transparent sycophant; she probably needs a few acting classes.

My initial take on Pence with his continual "umms" and Birx with her verbal land speed record is that both perceived themselves as deceiving the audience. Pence had to constantly pause and gather himself to maintain a Joe Friday pseudo-integrity. Birx found what she was doing to be so distasteful psychologically that she went to her own "warp speed" just to get it over with ASAP.

Then we have Dr. Fauci. Fauci looked as if he had finally gotten some sleep. I'm not sure that the general media picked up on my interpretation of what Fauci did.  He spent his first five minutes at the podium basically debunking the spin of both Pence and Birx. He debunked what Birx had implied with her color-coded county charts and compartmentalization, and he debunked Pence's cheerleading nonsense. Fauci did it obliquely but obviously.

Looking back at my impression of the task force non-verbals, I think it's clear that Pence knows he's on the way out. Birx has gone the fealty route and realizes that she has embarrassed herself. She'd best wear ear plugs at most professional conferences going forward, because people are going to have a lot to say about her. Fauci has recognized the clusterfuck nature of the task force from the beginning. He carries the assurance of an old mob boss who knows he's going to outlast all the morons around him while maintaining everyone's respect. I still have my Fauci bobblehead on back order, but the public may have been better served had he simply resigned three months ago and gone on a have-some-brains tour of American media 24/7 to sell what people should have been doing.


Conclusion

When the best that the head of the Federal Coronavirus Task Force has to offer is to pray, and pray, and pray, and pray some more, it's time (as Benchley wrote and Spielberg directed) to get a bigger boat. And a much better crew.


Bob Dietz
June 27, 2020