The Art of Schmoozing and BSing

Joanne links to a story about an actor who presented himself as an expert in "the application of mathematics to human behavior." He gave a talk to a group of people including professional educators; problem was, his talk was a bunch of neat-sounding hot air augmented by a warm and engaging style. Joanne concludes:

Students learn more from high-content lectures, researchers concluded, but give the same high ratings to “expressive” Fox-style lectures with no content as they do to “expressive” lectures with content.

As I read that a singular thought occurred to me: this is how President Obama got elected.