We’ve all seen the photographs, either stills at the top of an article on the web or television coverage of congressional investigation or a senatorial discussion. We’ve all seen the old men and old women with glasses perched on the tips of their noses. We’ve all noticed them looking down, reading, checking something that is printed, and then looking up at the target of their inquiry and glaring at them over the top of their glasses.

I’ve heard some commenters on the radio mention and say they can’t quite figure out what I call the Over-the-Glasses-Glare. It is really quite simple, and here it is.

The “statesmen” and “stateswomen” who engage in this nasty practice are trying to promote two images: the first is of the older, studious politician who has spent so many years of their lives and so many hours of those years poring over proposed legislation and history books and analyses that they’ve burned their eyes out and need the assistance of glasses just to be able to read. We are at once to respect their pious attention to scholarly study and analysis, to respect the wisdom of their studies, of their years of learning and applying scholarly to the pragmatic, and to honor their having committed so much of their lives to “public service.”

That is the first image we are supposed to absorb and the image we are supposed to retain in our individual and collective memories when we hear their names spoken. But it is that very focus through their glasses at some printed material on the desk before them that requires them to then look over the top of their glasses at the target of their investigation. And in that moment of refocusing their attention and their eyes to create the second image that we are not only to absorb but to fear.

You see, when they look over the top of their glasses to refocus their eyesight and their attention, this allows them to positively glare at their target. They hide behind the cover of having to refocus their eyesight after having looked through their glasses. They look over their glasses, those powerful readers or prescription-reading glasses and their eyes are so out of focus that first they must squint their eyes down to be able to find the face of their target and then they must glare in order to bring their distant vision into focus. This exaggerated effort to locate and refocus their eyesight gives them the excuse they need to glare at their target.

And if you ever notice that glare, you see it is not just an ordinary glare that one motorist gives to another who cuts in front of him in a long line of traffic. In that glare is a special malice particularly reserved for abject hatred. That glare says, “if I could bullwhip you with impunity, I’m not at all certain that I could restrain myself. And I do believe I would be applauded, because we all loathe you and have the singular purpose of destroying you.

Respect me as a wise elder and fear me as an untouchable, sadistic despot.”