It’s All In The Walk – The Only Sure Way To Guess Who’ll Get The White House

An Actors walk

Jan Weatherhead writes from Washington: George Bush senior’s ‘s old chief of staff, John Sununu, stopped by the studio this week. I like him. He had a good boss in those days at the White House. A good foreign policy man was that Bush senior. Pity he didn’t manage to pass it on to junior. Sununu knew the foreign policy brief.

I seem to remember the late British actor Sir Alec Guinness telling me that when he was working on the character for his role of George Smiley in John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor he couldn’t get it until one day he noticed the way a guy in front of him in a London street was walking. He knew instantly what the man was like. He knew also that was how Smiley would walk.

The late Sir Alec Guinness

Sununu reckons that you get one look at the President’s step-up walk and you know he’s an actor. An action walk? Yes. It’s that short burst when the President is running up the steps into Marine One and when he’s coming out, all set to snap off a commander-in-chief salute to the stiff-to-attention marine at the bottom of the steps. 

It’s action man. Not MacArthur hitting the ramp at Okinawa but just maybe something out of Top Gun. (Critics might say Police Academy 2). 

The best of Zed 1985 via Youtube.

Is Mitt Romney wearing a corset?

Okay, Romney is a track man and has one, maybe two, damaged insteps or somewhere around there. Maybe. But I think it’s character. Short, sharp, steps. A cynic (or was he just a rumour monger?) said he thinks Romney simply wears a corset. Maybe a back injury. Maybe something to give his tailor a break. The walkologists in political analysis say it’s all about getting what you see.Presidents get noticed when they walk because mostly no one stands real close so the cameras and human eyes as well as long toms and wide angles catch the gait – the most vulnerable point in anyone’s visible character. It’s always been that way. So back to 2012 and walking the talk as it inevitably is. Who should get the vote in November?

These are extracts from Stirring Trouble Internationally - A humorous take on news and current affairs - http://www.stirringtroubleinternationally.com/2012/10/04/its-all-in-the-walk-the-only-sure-way-to-guess-wholl-get-the-white-house/