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Ever wonder how crafty politicians and people in high places manage to get themselves out of trouble? With the five D's, you no longer have to. Learn what they are, how they've been used, and most importantly, how you can use them yourself!

This was taken from my fifth speech in Toastmasters from the advanced manual "Speaking to Inform". It's been expanded and edited from the speech draft. It's meant to be semi-serious and semi-comedic.

Since the dawn of organized politics, those in power, whether left, right, center, or what have you, have gotten themselves in some sort of trouble. Whether that trouble involves sex, drugs, money, power, or a combination of all those (and maybe a little rock n’ roll), there’s something that shrewd politicos have developed to keep them alive and kicking. Actually, there’s five “somethings” that are in this Machiavellian toolchest, and they are the five “Ds” of which the article title speaks.

First of all though, why should you care? Oh sure, you could take what you learn here and use it to spot some of these tricks that are used by politicians of any stripe when they have to squirm. The more devious among you may find the information presented here of great value, though I’m sure you already will know these basics. With that said, let’s get started with what these five dark arts are: deny, delay, distort, deceive, and distract.

Let’s start with denial. Imagine this: you’re at a news conference and a questioner blitzes you with a question like, “why did you lie about such-and-such”? We might expect a capable, emotionally well-developed person to come clean at this point. Ah, but that’s so boring! Besides, do you really want people to think of you as a liar? Of course not! People in power don't apologize, or else they usually don't stay in power for very long. This is going to be the time to use denial. Against weaker willed opponents, this can work wonders – they’ll simply sit down and shut up. It's the equivalent of the Jedi Mind Trick ("Why did you lie about such-and-such?" "I did not lie about such-and-such" "You didn't lie about such-and-such...") If you get someone a little more stubborn or adept, you’ve got a few options. “You’re taking my statements out of context” is often useable, as is “that’s not exactly what I said”. Both of these imply that the questioner doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and will put you back on the offense. If nothing else, “I have no memory of making that statement” will alleviate some of the heat on you. Sure, some people might think you're forgetful, or at worst, senile, but it's better to be that than considered a liar.

Unfortunately denial doesn’t always work, as seen with the whole Monica Lewinsky affair, as well as with a more recent incident with Donald Rumsfeld where a reporter asked why he had lied about WMD. When deciding whether or not to use it, remember the mantra “plausible deniability”. Meditate on this well.

There are times when denial isn’t going to cut it, or it needs a helping hand. That’s where our second D can help: Delaying. In our fast-paced, 30 second attention span culture, delaying can be an extremely powerful tool for taking off heat. Simply acknowledge the issue only as little as possible, if at all, and the next scandal or disaster to come along will undoubtedly come along and take the focus away from your indiscretions. With any luck, you might be mentioned on the start of the evening news, only to be forgotten by the end of the program!

For a few testaments to this technique, does anyone remember the Downing Street memo? How about Valerie Plame, the CIA operative that was outed? They likely exist as dim memories right now to most people, which shows how powerful this technique can be. Combine it with relegating issues to investigative committees (preferably ones stacked with members of your own party) and the like, and you begin to see how effective this tactic can be.

If simply forgetting the past isn’t enough, there’s always the subtle tweaking of it. Distortion is our next tactic, and unlike the other two Ds I’ve mentioned so far, you can use distortion even when you’re not in trouble!

The key to distortion is not to lie – at least, not completely. Again, this is all about tweaking the truth to fit your ends. In fact, distortion was what statistics was invented for! As an example of distortion, let’s take an economics report that says “the jobless rate decreased”. Alright! We’ve done something right….right? Well, pay no attention to the accompanying statistic that says that the former mid-level manager is now making a tenth of his salary as a greeter at Wal-Mart. Classic distortion there.

Distortion can also be used to muddy things up, which is often an effective strategy for confusing the issue to the point where people give up trying to understand it. To some extent, this can happen naturally, especially with as many media outlets as we have available. Between radio, the papers, TV, and the internet, stories can get wildly out of sync fast.

Distortion is really the venial sin when compared to the next D: Deception. Oh yes, this is where the big boys and girls flex their muscles, make no mistake. Now sure, I could’ve folded this into distortion, but I thought since five is greater than four, I’d sound more impressive. I expect that in the future, there will be upwards of 16 Ds.

In any event, the thing that separates distortion and deception is fairly simple: distortion picks and chooses ‘truthy’ (to quote Steven Colbert) elements, while deception is an outright lie. Let's review a few.

* "I did not have sex with that woman." (Bill Clinton) While Bill didn't consider what he did to be "real" sex, it'd likely be enough for a divorce in many cases. To him it was a distortion. For us, a deception.

* "It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." (Donald Rumsfeld) Ah yes, the heady days of the Iraq war buildup, when Bush and Co. were hyping up WMD as the reasoning. Total lie, especially when later he claimed that he had never said he knew about it (a denial to cover a deception).

* "Read my lips: No new taxes." (George Bush Sr.) People would say this is the line (or at least, one of them) that ultimately doomed Bush the first, but was it a deception? In my estimation, it wasn't; Bush simply was politically outmaneuvered and couldn't help but break that promise.

Further examples of this phenomenon abound and I’m sure many of you have your own favorite examples, so I won’t delve further into it here.

The fifth and final implement of the squirmy politician is distraction. In stage magic, they call it ‘misdirection’. This is my favorite D, because I get to mention ancient Rome, particularly a poet named Juvenal. He was the originator of the phrase “bread and circuses”, describing how the emperors would use cheap food and coliseum events to distract the poorer members of the populace to keep them from rioting.

Distraction goes hand in hand with delaying, because it draws the negative attention away from the scandal in question. One recent example is Bush bringing up a gay marriage scare in June when his poll numbers were sagging heavily. However, at a time of rising gas costs and ever worsening situation in Iraq, it was strangely not effective.

One form of distraction that warrants its own D is what I call the Decoy (yes, it's a sixth D, but I'm sticking it under Distraction for now). This is simply the use of others to attack or cushion you. It's very effective when you want to communicate something but don't want to suffer the potential backlash of doing so. For example: Smear campaigns, such as the one directed against John McCain in the 2000 election, aren't something that a candidate himself should be seen partaking in. Therefore, third party 'pollsters' are brought in to spread deception. Most talk radio shows and Fox news are great examples of this, and it's my opinion that Bush the Second's regime are masters of this tactic.

That about summarizes the five Ds. As you’ve noticed, there is considerable overlap between them, and that’s by design. Many of the Ds are meant to dovetail with each other, to reinforce their collective power. Master them, and you’ll find that not only can they be used fairly interchangeably, but also can be used on top of each other – a distortion of a distortion or distracting away from a distraction! Remember, the next time you’re in trouble, think, “how can the five Ds help me right now?”