"The F.B.I.’s increasingly pervasive use of the polygraph, or a lie-detector test, has only intensified a culture of intimidation."

"Mr. Patel has wielded the polygraph to keep agents or other employees from discussing a number of topics, including his decision-making or internal moves. Former agents say he is doing so in ways not typically seen in the F.B.I.... Jim Stern, who conducted hundreds of polygraphs while an F.B.I. agent, said... that if someone violated policy, the F.B.I. could polygraph them. But if an agent who legitimately talked to the news media in a previous role had to take one, he said, 'that’s going to be an issue.' 'I never used them to suss out gossip,' he said. At a recent meeting, senior executives were told that the news leaks were increasing in priority — even though they do not involve open cases or the disclosure of classified information. Former officials say senior executives, among others, were being polygraphed at a 'rapid rate.' In May, one senior official was forced out, at least in part because he had not disclosed to Mr. Patel that his wife had taken a knee during demonstrations protesting police violence...."

From "Unease at F.B.I. Intensifies as Patel Ousts Top Officials/Senior executives are being pushed out and the director, Kash Patel, is more freely using polygraph tests to tamp down on news leaks about leadership decisions and behavior" (NYT).

I've made a new tag — "lie detector" — and gone back and applied it to old posts. Interesting to see how many times the topic has come up:

April 2004: "[E]ven if the lie detector was not to be used on [Omarosa], and, indeed, even if lie detector tests are not reliable, if she believed it was to be used on her and believed it was reliable, her running off at the sight of it is some evidence that she had lied in her accusation about the other contestant....."

April 2005:  "Everyone on TV was into analyzing why [the groom-to-be of the Runaway Bride] would take a private lie detector test, but wanted special conditions before he'd take the police test. He wanted it videotaped, and the police refused...."

July 2005: "Some researchers attached sensors to 101 penises and then showed the possessors of these penises either all-male or all-female porn movies. It was kind of a lie detector test, because the men had all professed to being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual...."

October 2008: Ashley Todd, the woman who claimed a black man had carved the letter "B" on her face.

June 2012: "'$1.1 million-plus Gates grants: "Galvanic" bracelets that measure student engagement.'... [I]sn't this basically a lie detector? And if so, won't students train themselves to fool the authorities?"

April 2013:

To what extent can the House Democrats control what the Senate Republicans do about impeachment?

Or, to phrase it like Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post: "How far can the House go to stop a sham trial?"

The Senate doesn't control the House; Why should the House control the Senate? The Constitution gives the House "the sole Power of Impeachment" and the Senate "the sole Power to try all Impeachments." That's the text of the document the House Democrats have been making such a show of solemnly honoring. Are they going to switch now to creative hijinks? How far can they go?!

Go as far as you can!!! Rubin eggs them on. Forget how you deafened yourself to the accusations Republicans made about the "sham impeachment." Time steal their rhetoric and call it a "sham trial." Oh, you do have to be careful. This is politics and there are winners and losers. Who's worse off if the people get the idea "sham"? Will the Democrats' "sham trial" framing enhance the Republicans' "sham impeachment" framing? Republicans say a sham impeachment, like a frivolous lawsuit, needs to be met with anti-sham tools and dismissed summarily, or the shamsters will file one frivolous impeachment after another and clog up the Senate. Frivolous lawsuits don't go to trial in the courts. The courts, carrying out their duty to decide cases, have devised methods to save themselves from being ruined by excessive and inappropriate work that comes in the form of a case.

Rubin sets out 5 ideas:

"The press reports he watches television for hours, is inattentive to briefings, doesn't read, rants, rages, nurses petty resentments..."

"... doesn't listen to those with expertise, doesn't understand the constitutional limits on his office, is increasingly alone and paranoid. Are these things true? What else is true?... Why do those who have worked with Mr. Trump so rarely if ever speak in any depth, in public, of their experience?... Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said a great deal in his resignation letter... But one letter isn't enough. The Trump supporters I know are motivated by patriotism, not spleen, bigotry or bitterness. They are so loyal to their man in part because they see all the forces arrayed against him, especially in the media. They believe, legitimately, that he gets only grudging credit for his accomplishments. And they have told themselves a story about the brave if unlikely outsider who sacrificed his own comfort to upend a corrupt system and protect the interests of the common man.... They won't believe someone like Omarosa... They won't believe the words of 'Anonymous,' author of the September New York Times op-ed that became a sensation.... They will believe only the testimony of serious people who are obviously patriots.... We need some noble rats. May they come forward, speak softly, and make their motives clear."

Writes Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. I added the boldface.

We need some noble rats.

And — since I'm thinking about illustrations this morning, having just perused "The Year in Illustration 2018" (NYT) — I'll add my illustration:

The Noble Rat ("Pop").

"I’m sure ABC would love it if my show appealed to everyone. But I don’t think that world exists anymore. And I’m not comfortable in it."

"I don’t really see any other path. I also think one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a performer is trying to guess what your audience wants. I think you need to do what you think is right and hope that it works out."

Said Jimmy Kimmel, responding to a question about the effect of politics on his ratings, quoted in a Daily Beast interview with the inaccurate title "Jimmy Kimmel Doesn’t Want to ‘Appeal’ to Trump Fans: ‘I Don’t Think That World Exists Anymore.'"

I clicked through based on that headline, which made me feel that Kimmel had either meant that Trump doesn't have fans anymore or that the people who like Trump are just nonpeople as far as he's concerned.  But what he means, as I read the larger context, is that TV has changed, and there are so many choices now that it's no longer the case that a late-night talk show needs to appeal to everyone. That might have been the way TV was done long ago, for example, when Johnny Carson did "The Tonight Show," but these days, taking on the limitations inherent in being likable to everyone isn't worth it.

But Kimmel is concerned about reaching a lot of people, because he explains his willingness to make fun of Trump in terms of the ignorance of the audience:

You don’t want to have to spend three minutes explaining a story to your audience. And if there is anything good about Donald Trump, it’s that people are paying attention to what’s going on in the White House. And you can make jokes about subjects that people might not have been paying attention to when Obama was president or Bush was president. Because he is such a colorful character and there is so much attention put on everything he says and does. So that makes it ideal for comedy. You don’t have to set up the setup. I’ve always felt that my job, even during my radio days, is to talk about the events of the day.

So it's not that he's writing off the Trump fans so much as he's hungry for some material that will actually make people laugh.

And this was interesting:

In 2004, you were going to have Omarosa on.... And the legend is that she thought there was going to be a lie detector test, freaked out and left before her appearance. Is that an accurate description of what happened?

Yes, what happened was, my Uncle Frank‍ lied about something. And I thought it would be funny to give him a fake lie detector test on the air, something that he thought was real. She saw the setup for the lie detector test and decided that we were going to spring it on her, which, if you know anything about taking a polygraph test, that’s not how it works. It takes a long time. There’s no ding and no buzz. It’s a chart that they analyze afterwards. So that was preposterous just to start with. But she stormed out of there and the show was live so we had no guest. I don’t remember what I talked about, I probably just talked about her the whole time. But she was very angry. And I remember thinking it’s better this way. I didn’t want to have her on the show. The woman — there’s clearly something wrong with her. And the fact that Donald Trump hired her is really all you need to know about that guy and his organization.

Ironically, her reaction to the idea of a lie detector test is some evidence that she is a liar. But it's rather weak evidence. For one thing, being asked — as part of the show — to take the test is humiliating. It implicitly accuses her of being a liar. And a nonliar could feel anxious about taking the test and the anxiety could make you feel that you would fail the test.

ADDED: At this point in writing this post, I went looking in my archive for an earlier post explaining a point of evidence, the inference about a person's state of mind produced by the refusal to take a test even where that person is wrong about the test. It was something about "the ordeal of the bier" that I used to teach in Evidence class. And — ha ha — here's the old post, from April 29, 2004, "Omarosa and ... the ordeal of the bier!" I blogged it in the very context of the old Jimmy Kimmel show!

AND: Quoted at the 2004 post:

“The lie-detector test wasn’t even for her,” a spokeswoman for the show told the Scoop. “It was intended for Jimmy’s Uncle Frank [a regular character on the show], but when Omarosa saw it, she just freaked.” Some fellow contestants have accused Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth of lying when she said one of them used the N-word. “We tried and tried to calm her down, but she just kept saying ‘I’m not going on stage with that lie detector test’ then she just walked out.”

First, interesting that the lie in question was about her saying somebody used the N-word. Second, how do we know they aren't lying about how they intended to use the lie detector? Even if they had some routine with Uncle Frank, that would have made lie detecting a subject that might be referred to in other parts of the show, an ongoing theme that Jimmy could tap. Since Omarosa didn't go on the show, we never found out, and the story that it was always only for Uncle Frank cannot be tested. Maybe Jimmy's lying.

"Trump is the first president in more than a century not to have a dog, and his dislike for the pets shows in his frequent put-downs."

From the front-page teaser for "'Like a dog': Trump has a long history of using canine insults to dehumanize enemies" by Philip Rucker at The Washington Post. Trump called Omarosa "that dog"  — and also "a crazed, crying lowlife." So that made an opportunity to talk about dogs, which is one of the most popular things to do on the internet. But that's because we love dogs, right? So what to say about "dog," the insult, which, of course, must be portrayed as really bad, racist actually, because Trump said it?

Let's look:

Animalistic slurs come easily to Trump, who over the past few years has likened a long list of perceived enemies to dogs — including former FBI director James B. Comey, former acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates, former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), journalist David Gregory and conservative commentator Erick Erickson.

That makes it hard to call "dog" racist. But not too hard for Rucker.

But in Trump’s telling, Manigault Newman did not simply get fired “like a dog.” She was a “dog” herself.

The old metaphor/simile distinction!

And:

The president’s calling a woman a dog — and not just any woman, but the highest-ranking African American who has served on his White House staff — drew stern condemnations.

“Mr. President, it is beneath you and the office of the presidency to call any woman a dog,” Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) tweeted. “It is degrading and demeaning, and I pray that you will stop this vulgar behavior. Our country is better than this.”

Yes, it's sexist too. Interesting that Rucker made that point without using the idea that a female dog is a "bitch." By the way, has Trump ever called a woman a bitch? Yes! It's part of the famous Access Hollywood audio: "I moved on her like a bitch." Like a bitch. Another simile. Too much of a complication.

Rucker takes on the conundrum of how "dog" works as an insult when we seem to love dogs. He talks to David Livingstone Smith, "a philosophy professor who studies dehumanization and racism":

Smith said leaders use dehumanizing rhetoric to elicit fear and solidarity against some perceived existential threat from “others.” Yet while dogs are considered dirty in some cultures, such as in the Middle East, they are popular in the United States as household pets and are considered loyal and adoring. Smith suggested that a more apt slur in America would be calling someone a rat or a pig or a wolf.

But Trump, an avowed germaphobe, has long had an aversion to dogs.

Wait. He's good with dogs:



The rest of the article is padded with information about other Presidents having dogs. Morsel of evidence Rucker fails to process: The Secretary of Defense is nicknamed "Mad Dog."

"'Nobody even told me about it,' Trump says in the recording of a phone call that Newman says is from the day after she was fired from her White House communications post in December."

"'I didn’t know it. I didn’t know that. Goddammit. I don’t love you leaving at all.'... Newman, in a combative interview on Today, dodged questions about whether Trump was lying on the phone call, saying that she was 'not certain.' She added that Trump, in general, is 'absolutely' a serial liar, but said she 'never expected him to lie to the country.' She said she was locked in a room before Kelly told her she was fired, and characterized the meeting as 'false imprisonment.' 'It’s not acceptable for four men to take a woman into a room, lock the door and tell her wait, and tell her that she cannot leave,' she said. 'It also is unacceptable to not allow her to have her lawyer or her counsel, and the moment I said I would like to leave and they said I can’t go, it became false imprisonment."

CNN reports.

Newman!



ADDED: Trump reacts to his antagonist in 2 tweets this morning:

Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard....

...really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me - until she got fired!

ALSO: I'm amused by the phrase "She was vicious, but not smart." It implies (inadvertently) that it might be good to be vicious if you are smart... or okay to be dumb if you're not vicious. Song cue:



That song is actually about Andy Warhol — Andy Warhol as seen by Andy Warhol:

[Warhol] said, ‘Why don’t you write a song called 'Vicious, and I said, 'What kind of vicious?’ ‘Oh, you know, vicious like I hit you with a flower.’ And I wrote it down literally.

ALSO: Speaking of "vicious, but not smart"... there's a popular notion that Andy Warhol had an IQ of 86, and Gore Vidal once quipped, "Andy Warhol is the only genius I’ve ever known with an I.Q. of 60." I may have already connected that to Trump. I should search my archive, but I'll just say there's a style of using language that looks stupid to people who don't see why it's brilliant, and these uncomprehending people often puzzle aloud — perhaps using big words and long sentences — about how that idiot could be so successful.

AND: One more Trump tweet:

While I know it’s “not presidential” to take on a lowlife like Omarosa, and while I would rather not be doing so, this is a modern day form of communication and I know the Fake News Media will be working overtime to make even Wacky Omarosa look legitimate as possible. Sorry!

And:

Wacky Omarosa already has a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement!

Omarosa doesn't know what's in her own book... or she does and she's pretending not to.

I do not want to spend much time on Omarosa's book. I'm just going to link to this NPR piece, "Omarosa Tells NPR She Heard Trump 'N-Word Tape,' Contradicting Her Own Tell-All Book" and quote this:

In her interview with NPR's Rachel Martin, Manigault Newman claims to have heard the tape and heard Trump using that slur on the tape.

But that's not what it says in her tell-all book, Unhinged, due out on Tuesday.

When asked by Martin about the discrepancy during the interview, Manigault Newman insisted Martin must not have read the book (she had) and pointed to a section at the very end of it. But in that section, Manigault Newman doesn't actually describe hearing the tape. She writes of calling one of her "sources" who had a lead on the "N-word tape."

"Unhinged" is such a common insult these days, but I heard some comedian say something like: "They said I was 'unhinged,' but I don't even have hinges." I'm just going to guess it was Kathy Griffin, because I can't find the joke on the internet and I recently sat through her 3-hour show. I liked that joke, and I'm tired of the insult "unhinged" (and all the other insults that rest on the premise of mental illness, a condition that warrants empathy (including my own longstanding tag "Trump derangement syndrome")).

I can also see that when the comedian Michelle Wolf was called "unhinged," she reacted with the joke, "Now is not the time to be hinged," but I like "I don't even have hinges" much better, because it takes you immediately to the concrete image — a person with hinges. This is what I picture:



That man — his name is Jeff Warner — is really good at operating that toy and I like his voice too. It reminds me of Jim Kweskin. The toy is called a "limberjack" or a "jig doll." I was a little worried that the term "jig doll" in a post involving Omarosa might strike some people as racist, especially since the song Warner is singing is "Buffalo Gals." But a "jig" is a dance, and these dolls — also called "limberjacks" — have been around for hundreds of years and don't seem connected to the racial slur that begins with those 3 letters and that can be shortened to those 3 letters. But here are some Pinterest images of jig dolls, and you'll see that some of them depict black people in a way that is easily interpreted as racist (like this one).

As for "Buffalo Gals"... are they supposed to be black women? I've never thought about this before. From Wikipedia:

"Buffalo Gals" is a traditional American song, written and published as "Lubly Fan" in 1844 by the blackface minstrel John Hodges, who performed as "Cool White." The song was widely popular throughout the United States. Because of its popularity, minstrels altered the lyrics to suit the local audience, so it might be performed as "New York Gals" in New York City or "Boston Gals" in Boston or "Alabama Girls" in Alabama (as in the version recorded by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins on a field recording trip in 1959). The best-known version is named after Buffalo, New York.

Hmm. So "Buffalo" is not a way to refer to black people. It's just Buffalo, New York. But it is an old blackface minstrel song! What a strange set of facts to encounter as I put some extra effort into steering away from anything arguably racist. And I don't want to be unfair to Jeff Warner, who just seems delightful to me. Here's the most famous version of the song:



"Buffalo Gals" is also what the slave character Jim is singing when we first encounter him in Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer":

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour--and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:

"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some."

Jim shook his head and said: "Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an' git dis water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to my own business--she 'lowed SHE'D 'tend to de whitewashin'."

“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only a a minute. SHE won't ever know."

“Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me. 'Deed she would."

I didn't have to censor the "N-word" in that passage. It does appear elsewhere in "Tom Sawyer," but not (as in "Huckleberry Finn") as part of Jim's name. But Mark Twain's use of the African American Vernacular English is on vivid display. The white author completely failed to follow the Roxane Gay directive to "know your lane" and stay in it.

And now, if you need a book to read, you can't be thinking of reading "Unhinged." That would be nuts. Don't you feel like reading "Tom Sawyer"? "Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden." That's great stuff. And I love running into words that it seems we've been forgetting to use, like "skylarking."

"Skylark" is also a song. Here, this is nice:



I think the "skylark" there is the bird. Not the prankish horseplay. And not the Buick...



Bonus: The French word for the "skylark" (the bird) is "alouette" — as in...



Je te plumerai la tête = I'll pluck the feathers out of your head.

And that's where I'm going with all this: I'll pluck all thoughts of Omarosa out of your head.

Trump is "a numbers guy."

I need to show you a second quote from Omarosa on "Big Brother": "Don't get me wrong, Obama's administration was aggressive about deportation too... I've seen the plan. The roundup plan is getting more and more aggressive... He's a numbers guy. He wants to outdo his predecessors."

I have an old post about Trump the numbers guy, and this post would be a better post if I could dig it out of the archive. Since I can't, I'll just leave this post in "stub" form.

Why would anyone say "I’m Christian, I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things"?

The speaker is Omarosa  (talking to her "Big Brother" housemates), and the "he" is Mike Pence.

The full quote is: "As bad as you think Trump is, you would be worried about Pence... We would be begging for days of Trump back if Pence became President. He’s extreme. I’m Christian, I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things that are not —— and like, Jesus ain't sayin' that. Scary."

The video, with a truncated transcription, appears at Entertainment Weekly. EW ends at "he thinks Jesus tells him to say things," which made me write the post title — which I will leave in its original form — and I was going to do a poll. But the left-off "things that are not —— and like, Jesus ain't sayin' that" completely changes the meaning from a religious perspective, as I see it. And the poll I had wanted to do is not appropriate.

In the truncated form, Omarosa seems to be mocking all the people who believe that Jesus speaks to them. What kind of person claims to be a Christian but doesn't even tolerate the belief that some Christians have that. in some way, Jesus is communicating with them and guiding them toward saying the right thing? But in the completed quote, you can see that her problem with Pence is that the things he is saying, which he attributes to Jesus, are not what Jesus would say. That is, Pence is wrong in believing that Jesus is speaking to him because Pence conveys messages purportedly from Jesus that are — in Omarosa's opinion — obviously not things Jesus would say.

Her mockery comes in the line EW left off: "Jesus ain't sayin' that." I'd say that EW doesn't understand Omarosa's religious perspective and has hurt Omarosa by portraying her doing something that maybe the people at EW do: mocking the common religious belief that prayer is a 2-way communication. She's not denying that belief. She's just saying what Pence understands as the message from Jesus can't be the real message, because it's not the Christian message.

I don't know what specific words Omarosa feels she knows can't be from Jesus, and really I don't know whether the entire riff is reality-show bullshit. She's playing a game, so she has a motive to con the other contestants, and she has other plans for the future — notably a book to sell. She's thinking about potential audiences. Pence — whatever he may have said on this subject — may also have been lying, exaggerating, taking poetic license, or simplifying — conning the contestants in the game of winning the next election.

But Omarosa's main point — and it's a good point whatever you think of Omarosa — is that a person who believes he didn't think up his own ideas but had them handed to him by God is dangerous. He's impervious to reason and evidence and advice from experts and pleas for mercy and his own urges toward empathy and self-preservation.

If Omarosa didn't say "dossier," let's lob a new epithet: "Nixonian."

[POST TO COME. SORRY I ACCIDENTALLY PUBLISHED AFTER WRITING THE HEADLINE. CONCERNED THAT YOU MIGHT BE DISTRACTED BY IT ALREADY, I WON'T TAKE IT DOWN. THE BODY OF THE POST WILL ARRIVE SOON.]

I hate when that happens! There's some keystroke that publishes a post. I'm still not sure what it is, but I manage to hit it from time to time. Now, you're wondering what the hell this post title means. And the previous post title is enigmatic, so perhaps you think I've lost my mind.

Here are the 2 Washington Post articles I am reading:

1. From February 13th: "Journalist says Omarosa Manigault bullied her and mentioned a ‘dossier’ on her."

2. From February 14th (referring to the same juournalist, April Ryan): "‘This is . . . Nixonian’: Reporter was taped by White House in heated exchange."

Both articles are by Paul Farhi. The first article describes a dispute between Manigault and Ryan, and you can see that the headline highlights Ryan's version of the story. This is from the middle of Farhi's article:

In October, Manigault sent Ryan an email raising questions about whether Ryan was being paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign — a claim Ryan vigorously denies. Manigault included a link to an article from the Intercept ["EXCLUSIVE: New Email Leak Reveals Clinton Campaign’s Cozy Press Relationship"]...

Ryan's name was in the Intercept article, and Manigault pushed Ryan to protect her "legacy" and "integrity."

Ryan said she was devastated by any intimation that she was unethical. “It’s just ugly,” she said. “She’s trying to harm my integrity and my career. I’ve been [covering the White House] for 20 years. I plan to be here for the next 20 years. You don’t mess with someone’s livelihood.”

I don't understand why Ryan is attacking Manigault for something that was in The Intercept. Was The Intercept right or wrong? Attacking Manigault makes it look like The Intercept got it right. Farhi doesn't explore that puzzlement. Here's his next paragraph:

During their altercation...

How did the "altercation" start? Suddenly, there's a face-to-face encounter? We're just plunged into the middle of things!

... Ryan said Manigault told her that she was among several African American journalists who were the subject of White House “dossiers.” Manigault has previously said that Trump is keeping “a list” of opponents, though at the time she was referring to Republicans who voted against Trump.

Ryan said she dismissed the idea of any such dossiers. “I said, ‘Good for you, good for you, good for you.’ ”...

What makes it into the headline is the idea of "dossiers." (An interesting word, given the fake-news Trump dossier of 4 weeks ago.) It sounds very creepy and scurrilous, the keeping of dossiers on journalists. Why it sounds... Nixonian.

One day later, the news is that the conversation was recorded and the word "dossier" isn't there. Ryan's story is shot to hell. And what's in the headline? Ryan's using the word "Nixonian" to describe the practice of recording conversations.

Ryan said she was not aware that her run-in with Manigault last week was recorded. “I didn’t know she was taping it,” she said. “This is about her trying to smear my name. This is freaking Nixonian.”

Manigault said the White House’s press staff recorded the encounter and that its contents make clear she never threatened Ryan or mentioned “dossiers.”

“She came in [to the White House press-staff area] hot,” hurling insults at her, Manigault said. “She came in with an attitude. For her to characterize me as the bully — I’m so glad we have this tape … because it’s ‘liar, liar, pants on fire’ ” in Ryan’s case, Manigault said.

It may be Nixonian to record conversations, but this incident shows it was smart, since it gives Manigault a way to defend herself.

Farhi tells us that Washington D.C. has a "one-party consent" law, which would mean that Manigault recording Ryan without her knowledge is not illegal, but:

Several veteran White House reporters said interviews are sometimes recorded by officials but that it was unheard of to do so without a reporter’s prior knowledge.

I'd like to hear more about the etiquette of recording. If it's done surreptitiously, that might explain why reporters do not hear of it. Maybe what's special in this case is how quickly Manigault offered the assertion of the existence of a recording to defend herself. One reason to do that would be if there actually is no recording and Manigault is simply trying to force Ryan into changing her story. But that's extremely unlikely given that Farhi writes that "a handful of reporters" have heard the recording. One of them, Fox News White House reporter John Roberts, said that he heard "some terse words and accusations... but it didn’t amount to a confrontation," and that he did not hear the word "dossier."

Ryan stood by her account and charged that Manigault “selected pieces” of their exchange. “She wants to spin it like it’s a catfight, but she edited that tape,” she said. “You don’t hear her screaming. This is about her smearing me.”

And that's where we stand. Ryan got some big press and now she's on the defensive. Why did The Washington Post help her go on the offensive on February 13th and then again boost her on the 14th, calling Manigault "Nixonian"? When does Manigault get fair balance in The Washington Post? 

That reality show that Donald Trump made with Omarosa.

Watch the trailer, here. I only made it halfway through (and I was trying).

Back in the earliest months of this blog, I blogged "The Apprentice." It was the season with Omarosa. I said: 

Meanwhile, I keep finding people coming to my blog after Googling "Omarosa + suing," so I guess I better find out what that's all about so as not to disappoint people. Especially, now that writing that will cause my site to come up even higher when they Google that. I'm thinking she's trying to sue her way back on the show or collect some cash on the theory that they aggravated her concussion by pressuring her to work for 48 hours straight without a sit-down lunch break. She shouldn't sue though. Omarosa don't sue! Don't you realize millions of people find you immensely entertaining? You could have a whole reality show built around you--I'd call it "Drama Queen"--but who will want to deal with you if you show yourself to be all litigious?

ADDED: The show was not called "Drama Queen." It was called "The Ultimate Merger." It was one of those find-a-husband shows.

The female female impersonator.

An interesting category, but who would we put in it? Guy Trebay starts with Wendy Williams. (It's an article about Wendy Williams.) But who else? He suggests Phyllis Diller, but then he backs off:

But Diller was a comedian...

(Ahem. Diller lives. Born in 1917 and alive.)

... and so are her spiritual descendants, people like Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho, women sharp enough and shrewd enough to wade into the cultural scrapheap that is gender and recycle all the trashy signifiers they find there for laughs.

Williams is different, Trebay says, because she's a talk show host.

Like a kooky media divinity, a god in a comic book myth, Williams, 45, is permeable, superpotent and with no observable boundaries. She performs tricks on the air that involve her surgically amplified bosom. She suggests to guests like Omarosa Manigault Stallworth, the confrontational star of “The Apprentice,” that she look into facial fillers to correct the marionette lines that frame her stiff, practiced smile. She vows to keep her audience up to date on her vaginal toning. She cries, but then on television lately it’s hard to shut off the waterworks.

“You just have the audacity and the unmitigated gall to say what you think and let the chips fall where they may,” Williams said.

Nice. But I'm more interested in the general idea of the female female impersonator. The first person who sprang to mind for me is Dolly Parton. And Marilyn Monroe. And then Courtney Love, Madonna, Lady Gaga.

And as long as I'm in YouTube, here's the great Phyllis Diller:



And here she is with Groucho Marx — and she's the one with the drawn-on eyebrows — and here she is with Liberace.

Anyway, the topic for discussion is female female impersonators. And Phyllis Diller. And eyebrows...

Did they Wendy-ize Tiffani?

Unless you know the first season of "Project Runway" and have been following "Top Chef," my question can mean little. But there are certain reality show types. We all know what a Puck is, don't we? We all know what an Omarosa is, right? Pop culture literacy has some basic requirements. How can you not know the Wendy role? Then there's the whole issue of editing a person into the role, because it makes a good narrative. Was Wendy really, fully the Wendy character created by the "Project Runway" editors? But Tiffani? Suddenly, on this week's show, she's become the conniver who didn't come here to make friends. And Leann was the one everyone loved -- the Austin. (Or do you think Dave was supposed to be the Austin? No, Dave was the Andrae. Or was Andrae the Austin of "Project Runway's" second season?) Anyway, the two women -- Tiffani and Leann -- were seated side-by-side, and it was supposed to play as good versus evil, and -- oh, no! -- Tiffani makes it through to the finale. We're all supposed to cry for Leann and be stoked to see Tiffani fail in the finale. But what the hell? I'll be watching. Personally, I'm rooting for Dave. He's the underdog. He made it to the finale by making macaroni and cheese (with a truffle at the bottom) when all the others were being hoity-toity for the fancy-schmancy chefs. And he's so emotional. The other two -- Tiffani and Harold -- are steely/serene. Frankly, I'd rather work with either of them, because they radiate competence and control. Who wants a high-pressured work place to feel crazed and chaotic? But still, I'm a Dave fan. I've never seen a reality show where a verge-of-a-nervous breakdown character got this far.

"The Apprentice": Round 2.

After the second week of comparing Donald and Martha, what do you think? Last night, I took the pro-Donald position, pointing out perfect meld of dramatic photography, pounding music, and oppressive taskmaster. Chris said all those things have been the same for years and it's gotten old. He took the pro-Martha position. Donald's show had Lamborghinis. Martha's had flowers. Donald's was another ad campaign. Martha's was another sell-a-thon. Maybe it's all gotten old.

Both shows featured a wacky, hyper guy. In both cases, a more somber project manager got axed so the trickster could go on to make trouble another week. The format now relies on the Omarosas and Sams. Trump even made a lame reference to Omarosa on last night's show. Oooh, he said Omarosa! Maybe someone will behave badly tonight!

Is "The Apprentice" in its final phase, emphasizing jokers over competence?

Three problems with "The Apprentice."

After last week's "The Apprentice," I wrote, "I bet Stacie J. ends up doing just fine." I could not believe the producers on the show would cast the only black woman for the second season to be a person who would display the same negative characteristics as the only black woman in the first season. My theory was that the first episode of this season was edited to make Stacie J. look strange, to tease us into thinking she's the new Omarosa, but that in the end we'd see how wrong we were. In fact, my belief that a major TV network would not portray black women this way is so strong that I will predict that at some later point in the season, Stacie J. will be vindicated and perhaps even brought back.

Last night, Trump fired Stacie J., not because of anything that happened in the competition we had to watch, but because her teammates once again ganged up on her. They all said she had to go. The teammates were embarrassing and lame. They had all colluded to try to get Stacie J. fired. Lined up in the boardroom, they told the tale of the fateful incident in which Stacie consulted a Magic 8 Ball and then got petulant when the others didn't gather round and enjoy her attempted comic performance. The teammates, all female, asserted that her terrifying behavior that day justified their permanently closing ranks against her. Trump, who ought to have lambasted them, fired Stacie.

So now, unless something else happens later in the season (and assuming viewers don't just leave), the show seems to have a race problem: Stacie J., the only black woman, chosen for a resemblance to last season's only black woman, was ostracized by the group, and then, instead of receiving the benefit of the doubt, like Omarosa, she was fired for being the outsider. That was quite ugly. And it wasn't even funny. Well, maybe you could justify getting her off the show because she didn't make her outsiderhood funny (as Omarosa did). Maybe Stacie J. was a drag, as she chose to get quiet and preserve her dignity. And where's the show in a quiet, dignified outsider? Maybe she needed to be fired because she lacked sufficient entertainment value. But it's racist to assume the black character ought to provide the entertainment, and her presence was making her teammates put on a little show: that sorority-girl-style exclusion routine.

And there lies the second problem: the events this season so far are making us think ill of women. They seem to be irrational, overemotional--that Magic 8 Ball thing was the scariest thing that ever happened!--and cliquish. Stacie J. may be gone, but of those who have avoided getting fired, who is left on the women's team who is any good at all? Who feels like trusting any of them? Maybe women just aren't any good at management. Thanks a lot, Trump!

And here's the third problem: absolutely nothing that happened in the competition part of the show this week had anything to do with why Stacie J. got fired. The same thing happened last week, when Bradford was fired entirely for something he did in the boardroom at the end. So why are we watching the competition and bothering to look for the mistakes the competitors make? Last night's competition was about creating "buzz" for a new flavor of Crest toothpaste: Are we not supposed to notice that the company was in fact using the show to create buzz for the product? We were chumps watching an hour-long commercial.

UPDATE: Miss Alli, at Television Without Pity, puts it really well (as always):

[T]he women -- led by Maria as well as an especially nasty and obnoxious Stacy R., emerging as one of the most distasteful and malicious in a group of extremely classless women -- choose to gang up on Stacie J. in the Boardroom. They begin to ratchet up the accusations from "weird personality" and "hard to get along with" to "mentally ill," and Trump is so flummoxed that he hears from the entire group. And one by one, they claim to have been alarmed, concerned, or -- in Stacy R.'s case, actually frightened -- by Stacie's antics with the Magic 8-Ball. Shockingly, Trump is not smart enough to tell the difference between truth and ass-covering fiction, and in a reminder that this show is just as much about the oddities and limitations of Trump as it is about those of the candidates, he shrugs and fires Stacie. Donald Trump is a weird, weird little man.

On the theory that the show is an exposé of the weirdness of the Donald, Miss Alli gives the episode an A-. By contrast, the TWoP readers give in a C+ and express their contempt in the forums. I guess I was in the readers' camp, disgusted with the show. But maybe I should take Miss Alli's advice and view "The Apprentice" as a horror show about Trump and keep watching. Yet life is short! Maybe I should be watching "Lost." Or just reading TWoP recaps and not watching anything.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's Prof. Yin's take on the episode.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Prof. Yin covers the extended version of the show that aired over the weekend. My TiVo didn't pick it up for some reason, so I can't give my own version. But Prof. Yin explains why Trump was justified in firing Stacie J. This being the case, Trump ought to fire the show's editors. Actually, I wonder how much control over the editing he's given up. He's got a big stake in his own image, and the show has a lot of potential to make him look like a fool or worse. Ah, but to be on a big TV show! Maybe it's all worth it--for a big ego guy like Trump.

Is Stacie J. the new Omarosa?

After finally getting around to watching this week's "The Apprentice," Prof. Yin asks:

[W]hat is it with Mark Burnett's casting of African-American women, anyway? I realize that two data points are hardly conclusive, but doesn't it seem suspicious that each season of "The Apprentice" has had exactly one African-American woman, and each time, she's been completely nuts? (You haven't really [forgotten] Omarosa, have you?) Compare that to the one African-American male cast in each season (Kwame in season 1, Kevin in season 2), who seem like normal, likeable guys.

Here's my theory. Remember the show is edited after all the footage has been produced. Like Burnett's MTV show "The Real World," the editors look through all the raw footage and find story lines they can shape into narratives. The editing we're seeing on the show in any given week is part of a longer story arc that extends into other episodes. In the first two episodes, the black woman, Stacie J., has been presented in a way intended to lure us into thinking she's the new Omarosa. Fans of the show got a big kick out of Omarosa, and the editors know they can get us thinking about Omarosa if they show anyone acting strange, and maybe isolated clips of almost any of the contestants could look strange enough to jog us into thinking: Ooh, this looks good ... this might be weirdness of Omarosan proportions. So they do it with Stacie J. and it's especially easy because, like Omarosa, she's the only black woman.

But I will just bet some other contestant else turns out the real New Omarosa. They are just toying with us at this point in the story arc for this set of characters. Everyone ganged up on Stacie J. this week, and that was actually more Omarosan than anything Stacie J. actually did. (And the extended version of the show reveals that she wasn't as weird as she originally seemed. She didn't decide to call for temp help on her own. She asked the team leader and was told to go ahead!)

Like Prof. Yin, I think it would be rotten for the producers to pick "another Omarosa" to be the only black woman in the cast, and that's why I think they didn't do it. They are just generating interest and story line by making you think that they did. I bet Stacie J. ends up doing just fine.

UPDATE: Chris has this observation in support of the theory that Stacie J. is being edited to seem Omarosa-like:

Another thing to note is how in the premier episode they had this whole thing of showing Stacie "freaking out" and accusing people of ignoring her and being against her, without showing any background leading up to it. We were supposed to conclude that she started acting like this for no reason, completely unprovoked, but it looked very suspicious in that the scene began with the point at which she starts acting strange.

Fall movie preview.

The big Fall movie preview issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail today, and on the cover is my personal favorite actor, Johnny Depp. Not only is he clean shaven now, but he's got his hair combed back quite elegantly and he's wearing a suit. He looks quite like my father in the pencil drawing that I keep on the mantel. I'm having a bit of trouble getting past the cover! Hmm… the cover folds out and there are sixteen small pictures of various Fall movie stars. One of them is Maggie Gyllenhall, who looks uncannily like my own mother as a young girl. Okay, I'm finished with the cover. On to the magazine. Here's what caught my eye:

1. "Seinfeld" is coming out on DVD with "deleted scenes, blooper reels, an alternate version of the pilot, and cast commentaries."

2. Ereka Vetrini, Omarosa's nemesis from "The Apprentice," will be Tony Danza's sidekick on the new "Tony Danza Show." It's a talk show. Yeah, Ereka can talk.

3. Jamie Foxx, playing the role of Ray Charles in the biopic "Ray, " "wore prosthetics (modeled on Charles' actual eyes) to simulate the singer's blindness." He asserts that this was needed to avoid "cheating" as he moved around. It would be unaesthetic without prosthetics. But acting is faking it in all sorts of ways. Among the great actors who played blind sans eye prosthetics are: Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis and Gabrielle Anwar and Patty Duke and Virginia Cherrill. The movies seem to prefer blind women to blind men, but I note the great Mr. Muckle in my all-time favorite comedy "It's a Gift." And the guy in "Butterflies Are Free." Ah! The best performance by a male actor as a blind character was Al Pacino. Hmm… and there was good old Gabrielle Anwar as his love interest. What has become of of Gabrielle anyway? Oh, and another fine performance by a male as a blind character was Gene Hackman. It seems blind men are funny and blind women are dramatic. You can think about why, and think about whether Foxx's film will be a hit. He sure looks like Ray Charles in the photograph. He's also, according to EW, a fine pianist--he went to college on a piano scholarship. So he'll be doing all the piano playing as Ray. Nice fact to know: Ray Charles, who died in June, was able to witness the final cut of the film.

4. John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix play firefighters in "Ladder 49," which is supposed to be better than "Backdraft," which real firefighters hate (because it's unrealistic). The filmmakers want you to think "Black Hawk Down."

5. They remade "Alfie," with Jude Law as Michael Caine. I've never bothered to watch the Michael Caine one, so why should I care? Well, Law is much cuter than Caine.

6. So what's the Christian Bale diet? "I just didn't eat." He got down to 120 pounds (he's 6'2"). He also only slept 2 hours a night. What role required all that? Some paranoid guy in "The Machinist." He's bulked back up for "Batman."

7. New Alexander Payne movie. "Sideways." I loved "Election" and "After Schmidt" was pretty good. Good lord, this new film is set in a wine-tasting milieu!

8. "The Grudge"—they've hired the director of the original Japanese film ("Ju-on") to do the Hollywood version. Takashi Shimizu. It stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, who looks just like Gwyneth Paltrow in this picture.

9. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet together at last! "Finding Neverland." A biopic of J.M. Barrie. I hope it's good, because this is one I'd like to see.

10. Kevin Spacey directs himself in a biopic of Bobby Darin. "Beyond the Sea." How could that possibly be good? Spacey is eight years older than Darin was when he died. And who is interested in the life of Bobby Darin? That's just crazy! It seems the only reason for this is that Spacey has always looked a bit like Bobby Darin. What's next for Kevin? A biopic of Lee Harvey Oswald?

11. It's biopic year for the Oscar-craving actors as Leonardo DiCaprio plays Howard Hughes (with Martin Scorsese directing) in "The Aviator." There really is some fascination in seeing Cate Blanchett impersonate Katharine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale impersonate Ava Gardner.

12. Jim Carey as Lemony Snickett. He rides a Segway. Okay.

13. "Proof," "Closer" … I guess I'm supposed to care about these Oscar-y productions. I'll wait for the reviews. And even if they are good, I'll probably resist, because I still remember getting hoodwinked into seeing "The Hours." Prestige movies for women: leave me alone!

14. Then there's the question: What Don Cheadle movies can I see in December? There's "Hotel Rwanda," in which Cheadle plays the role of Paul Rusesabagina, who saved the lives of 1200 Tutsis in 1994 (a great story). And there's "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," a political thriller that also stars Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.

15. They're making a film of "Get Smart," with perfect casting: Steve Carell.

16. A current film I'd buy right now if it were on DVD: "Los Angeles Plays Itself." It's a documentary about L.A. as it appears in the movies.

17. Ah! Finally, a decent DVD of "Purple Rain." Make sure you get the 20th Anniversary version. Don't buy this one.

Am I going to watch the Joe Schmo Show?

I watched the first season of the show and I've watched the first episode, but I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to stick with it. The main thing I don't like is that it is a parody of the dating shows, particularly The Bachelor/-ette, and I've never watched those [Bachelor/-ette], so I'm not going to get the references. For example, on the first show, the two characters (actors) who are supposed to pick the love of their lives are told to eliminate three contestants each, judging them entirely on first impression. There are about fourteen contestants at this point, all but two of whom are actors pretending to be real contestants. The two main actors give all six of the black balls--symbols of elimination--to contestants who are members of minority groups. Then they had to do a voice over to explain why that is supposed to be hilarious and that the problem is the way minority contestants are eliminated early on other shows. But that can only amuse you if you've been irked or outraged by noticing this on the other shows. It's like watching a political satire based on public figures you don't know anything about.

The main thing I know about dating shows is that the people are boring. They keep meeting and having nothing to say to each other (except "I felt a connection" or possibly "a real connection"). I have watched a few of the shows: Boy Meets Boy, Joe Millionaire, and Cupid. Only Cupid was interesting (although overall an immense waste of time), because it was structured like American Idol and the American people got to vote for the candidate they wanted to keep seeing. That became truly hilarious because there was a character the woman looking for love could not tolerate, and the American people--one mischievous segment of it, at least--decided they wanted to see more painful dates. I'm not worried that Joe Schmo will be boring, though, because the actors are likely to talk a lot and make a lot of trouble for the two sincere contestants. I'm just afraid it won't be fun to watch a send-up of shows I haven't seen. But I hate the genre, so maybe I'll enjoy the satire--if it's mean enough.

The main reason I think I might like it is that it will be interesting to have two "Joe Schmos" rather than one, especially since one is a woman. So: Joe and Jo ... really: TIm and Ingrid. And the cool thing about Ingrid is she's always threatening to catch on. She's always talking to the actors and putting them on the spot. She started questioning everyone in the first five minutes, which caused one of the actors who was only supposed to stand there for a minute and get blackballed to slip up and mention her agent. Ingrid observed that several of the actors seemed rehearsed (which they were) and said it was like "The Truman Show." Yet the guy, Tim, is just hanging out, much like Matt, the season 1 Joe Schmo. Tim, like Matt, is pretty much mesmerized by the pretty women and enjoying the fun. He's just not noticing. Behind the scenes, we see the producers freaking out and saying "Get him outta there" when Ingrid starts taking about "The Truman Show." Yet Tim notices nothing. His mind, as opposed to his body, is just not engaged enough to pick up any clues. He's believing what he wants to believe.

(Somehow, I think this contrast is related to the discussion over at Volokh Conspiracy and Andrew Sullivan (pointed out by Instapundit) about why woman and gay men tend to put more effort into their physical appearance than do heterosexual men. I'd say: the effort seems to really pay off. Tim and Ingrid were both put into a setting where they are surrounded by completely attractive would-be partners, and Ingrid kept being perceptive and suspicious about the hidden motivations, but Tim was just loving what he saw. One can say that someone pursuing Ingrid would need to pay attention to appearance but also to a lot of other things, while someone pursuing Tim could put virtually 100% of her effort into outward appearance with the aim of causing a mental shutdown that would make all nonphysical deficiencies unimportant.)

Anyway, it may be quite fun to follow the Tim/Ingrid distinction.

Two things I learned from the official Joe Schmo blog (discovered via Throwing Things, which will be blogging the Joe Schmo Show): the falcon that swooped in with the plot twist message was named Montecore because that was the name of the tiger that attacked Roy (of Siegfried and Roy), the character Ambrosia is based on Omarosa (of The Apprentice).

So, then, am I going to watch it? Is Prof. Yin going to watch? No word yet.

Omarosa and ... the ordeal of the bier! According to Jeannette Walls at MSNBC News:

The much-loathed reject from “The Apprentice” was scheduled to appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” last week, but refused to go on air when she saw a lie detector test backstage.

“The lie-detector test wasn’t even for her,” a spokeswoman for the show told the Scoop. “It was intended for Jimmy’s Uncle Frank [a regular character on the show], but when Omarosa saw it, she just freaked.” Some fellow contestants have accused Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth of lying when she said one of them used the N-word. “We tried and tried to calm her down, but she just kept saying ‘I’m not going on stage with that lie detector test’ then she just walked out.”

That reminds me of a lesson about relevant evidence I used back in the days when I taught Evidence. We read a 1894 Missouri State Supreme Court case, State v. Wisdom (sorry for the long block quote, but this is not otherwise available on line and it's really cool):

In the course of the examination of the witness Hill, he was asked to tell what happened down at the morgue by the dead body of Mr. Drexler, when the witness Willard and defendant were there, prior to the inquest. This was objected to as immaterial; the objection was overruled. The witness answered that "they told us to put our hands on Mr. Drexler," and that he "and Willard did so, but defendant wouldn't do it." Officer McGrath corroborated this statement. Defendant objected to McGrath's statement, but assigned no reason. The action of the court in this regard is now assigned as error. Who it was that told them to put their hands on Mr. Drexler's dead body does not appear.

The request to touch the body was evidently prompted by the old superstition of the ordeal of the bier in Europe in the Middle Ages, which taught that the body of a murdered man would bleed freshly when touched by his murderer, and hence it was resorted to as a means of ascertaining the guilt or innocence of a person suspected of a murder.

This superstition has not been confined to one nation or people. It obtained among the Germans, prior to the twelfth century, and is recorded in the Nibelungenlied, the great epic poem of that country, in the incident in which the murdered Seigfried is laid on his bier and Hagen is called on to prove his innocence by going to the corpse, but at his approach the dead chief's wounds bleed afresh. That it dominated the English mind is attested by the passage of Matthew Paris, that when Henry II. died at Chinon in 1189, his son and successor came to view his body, and as he drew near, immediately the blood flowed from the nostrils of the dead king as if his spirit was so indignant at the approach of the one who caused his death, that his blood thus protested to God. And Shakespeare voices the same superstition in Richard III., in act 1, scene 2, thus:

"O! gentlemen, see, see! dear Henry's wounds Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh."

And so does Dr. Warren, in "Diary of a Late Physician," 3 vol., p. 327. That it was a prevalent belief in Africa and Australia, in another form, see 17 Encyclopedia Britannica, pp. 818, 819.

This superstition has come to this country with the emigration from other lands, and, although a creature of the imagination, it does to a considerable degree affect the opinions of a large class of our people.

It is true it was not shown that defendant believed that touching this body would cause any evidence of guilt to appear, or that he entertained any fear of possible consequences, but it was simply a test proposed by some bystander, and it was offered as showing the manner in which the three suspects conducted themselves when it was proposed. Clarke v. State, 78 Ala. 474; Chamberlayne's Best on Ev., page 488.

While defendant had a perfect right to decline, either because of his instinctive repugnance to the unpleasant task or because no one had a right to subject him to the test, and his refusal might not prejudice him in the minds of a rational jury, on the other hand, a consciousness of guilt might have influenced him to refuse to undergo the proposed test, however unreasonable it was and it is one of the circumstances of the case, that the jury could weigh. The jury could consider that, while it was a superstitious test, still defendant might have been more or less affected by it, as many intelligent people are by equally baseless notions as shown by their conduct and movements. It often happens that a case must be established by a number of facts, any one of which, by itself, would be of little weight, but all of which taken together would prove the issue.

So, getting back to Omarosa: even if the lie detector was not to be used on her, and, indeed, even if lie detector tests are not reliable, if she believed it was to be used on her and believed it was reliable, her running off at the sight of it is some evidence that she had lied in her accusation about the other contestant. On the other hand, it isn't very strong evidence. She may have believed lie detector tests are not reliable, especially for someone under stress (as she would be if given the test on camera), and so she could be telling the truth but rejecting the test to avoid producing evidence that would be used against her. And it is also completely sensible to flee the lie detector because it gave her the strong impression that she was going to be subjected to intrusive, disrespectful intrusions other than the interview she agreed to. Oh, and I'd like to see a lie detector test given to the spokeswoman for the show, with questions about whether they were planning to ask Omarosa once she was on stage whether she wouldn't like to take the test.

A sidenote: that case appeared in an early edition of the Green and Nesson problem method Evidence book. I harshly critiqued that edition of Green and Nesson in "The Lying Woman, The Devious Prostitute, and Other Stories from the Evidence Casebook," 88 Northwestern Law Review 914 (1994). That's not available on line, but it makes excellent reading. Having written an article with that title, I now have the rare distinction of having a resumé with the word "prostitute" on it! File that under: Things I Didn't Think About At The Time. And I have no quarrel with later editions of Green and Nesson's book, at least some of which included passages from my article.

ADDED: "The Lying Woman..." is now available to read on line: here.

"You better pick a nice, good, expensive college.'' I love that Trump locution. It reminds me of Peter Sellers improvising in the role of Quilty disguised as a police officer in Kubrick's Lolita.

(Donald Trump is offering to pay for the college education of Apprentice contestant Troy. Subscribers to Entertainment Weekly: go here, where you can also read about Omarosa getting fired from a Clairol Herbal Essences ''streaking party'' ad.)