The Ten Rules
What are the Ten Rules to the Academic Bluff for Politicians (which will not set off pundit alarms about your smarts):
1. Never answer a question directly if you can avoid it.
2. Always rephrase or repeat the question using the terms found in the question at the start of your response.
3. As you are setting up your soon to come answer, use words like “subtle” and “complex” to describe the problem.
4. Compare your coming “subtle” answer with the “unsubtle” view of your foe.
5. At this point, you might be able to work in regret that you have run out of time and can stop. Do this as soon as you can. If you have a compliant interviewer, you can set up the question for a long time and then stop. You have survived the question without saying a thing! You will be given points for how your complexity cannot be fit in a brief video clip. You are now officially “deep.” You will make the interviewer feel cheap and shallow and lucky to have been able to partake in a moment of your constant First-Mover-like internal monologue.
6. Learn academic noises (”hmm. . . .”) that take a great deal of time off the clock while giving the appearance of thinking. (Don’t make the McCain “mistake” at Saddleback of actually answering questions . . . this goes quickly and leaves your interviewer time to ask more potential stumpers.)
7. Cite books and smart people you have read or consulted, but do NOT mention who they are. Have one all purpose book or person to use as an example . . . and when pressed to give an example, keep talking about that book or example until you run out of time.
8. Work in other issues (pollution in China) and connect them. If you have kept your earlier framing of the issue vague enough, you can make a quick connection that actually changes the subject. If pressed on global security, on which you might know less than you fear people want you to know (often unreasonably), this is a great strategy. You can say, “Pollution impacts us all. It is a global security problem.” Actually, it isn’t really (in the context security does not mean that), but it will get you points as a person who can connect Big Ideas on the fly!
9. If you are going to use no facts in your answer, use the word “facts.” Talking about facts is a great way to avoid mentioning any.
10. Leave your audience with the sense that you are “still in process.” Keep clarifying the question and expanding its scope until you run out of time. (Look at the quote above and tell me what the Obama doctrine actually is.) You will sound as if you had so much more wisdom to share, but the demands of commercials (darn it!) cut you off.
Joe Biden is a master of this if you are looking for another good teacher, but he is not Senator Obama’s equal since he often says bizarre things while filibustering.