D Politicians, Pundits, and Stars 215
As I take you through studies of public figures, I encourage you
to watch some of the same video clips on your computer that I refer-
ence here. See if you come to the same conclusions I did and, if you
don’t, consider how projection, gender (yours and the other person’s),
ideology, and other elements may have influenced your thinking.
The Clintons
Love them or hate them, both Bill and Hillary have successful
strategies for putting off prying eyes. With two very different
personalities, each adapted to a microculture—their personal rela-
tionship—that images of the couple together merely hint at. Ironi-
cally, they have managed to accomplish this cover-up while creating
images as recognizable as the Kennedys.
In looking through her book Living History (Simon & Schuster,
2003), I see a couple with contrasting body-language styles: Bill,
the life of the party, with his arm around Hillary, the grounded one.
His focus: broad; often leaning towards her while maintaining the
attention of the camera. Her focus: narrow; the cameras. A task-
oriented person, she has an agenda and she knows what it takes to
complete the task. Does this say one cannot be funny and the other
serious? Or that one needs more approval than the other? Obviously
not when we consider the Clintons’ track records.
Bill Clinton
The former president is not a flirt he is The Flirt. He defines
extrovert. I know a few people who have met him and walked