I watched the State of the Union Address yesterday and couldn’t stop staring at the screen. It wasn’t President Bush who captivated me but the speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, who managed to blink at least once per second for an entire hour. She also seemed to be clenching her jaw a whole lot. Her eye blinking was so drastic that I couldn’t help but look at her whenever there was a shot of Bush, who she stood behind. I’m no psychiatrist so I can’t say what’s going on with her, but it certainly doesn’t seem normal.
UPDATE:
Video: Entire President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address
Animam Recro 
January 24, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I agree. I had to walk away from the President’s speech because she was driving me crazy. It looked as if she was chewing her cud plus the eye blinking. Good to know someone else was bothered by it too and I am not just being too sensitive…..
January 24, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Same here regarding Pelosi.
Rapid eye blinking suggests deceitfulness.
January 25, 2007 at 3:18 am
It does suggest decietfulness in some people in some circumstances, that is true, but it is not the only thing.. try sitting under an airconditioning vent for a while 🙂
January 29, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Did a little more reading into Pelosi’s strange eye blinking behavior.
Via: Watching the SOTU Speech on ABC
Someone claiming to be Pelosi’s Publicist left the following comment:
at 1/24/2007 7:23:33 AM, Pelosi’s Publicist said:
Nancy was wearing new eye contacts last night, and her eyes were in need of eye drops during the speech. After the speech was over, we were able to put drops in her eyes and she was fine for post-speech interviews in the hall. Nancy does not have false teeth. They are all caps. She was not licking her teeth. She was sucking on a cough drop throughout most of the speech.
A little bit later ‘calicat’ responds:
at 1/24/2007 8:15:24 AM, calicat said:
as a publicist you should have had the sense to give Pelositysauraus a few tips before the SOTU. Just little hints, like your right behind the President and everything you do will be televised. Forgive me, but it is a cop-out to say it was because of the contacts. Did she only put them in 10 seconds before taking her seat? If not then she would have been aware of the effect. And sucking on whatever was rude the way she did it. If not for all the plastic surgery she might have looked human, but that has been taken away.
It’s safe to say that the person claiming to be Pelosi’s Publicist is most likely a fake. There is no other reference to such a comment elsewhere on the internet and one would assume that part of a publicist’s job is to make such explanations known to the public.
September 4, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Rapid blinking blocks vision and can be an arrogant signal, saying ‘I am so important, I do not need to see you’
That is the most likely reason. It seems to fit for the situation. I would bet the contacts excuse is just PR.
Source:
http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/parts_body_language/eyes_body_language.htm
January 28, 2010 at 5:25 am
I stated this same concern about her eye movements. Not only was it very distracting, actually I do not quite recall all that President Bush had to say. It is obvious she is wondering how she got where she is seated, but to be most candid, it was the eyeshadow color. The continual blinking with the dark eyeshadow, looked like two “barn doors” opening and closing. Terrible.