Hoover: a hard to match weasel for the ages. In a prudish and arch-hypocritical society, his stock in trade was often political blackmail and innuendo over sexual peccadilloes.
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Albert Camus, The Fall
To be fascinated by another person who holds or symbolizes power is very common. It is often accompanied by a frisson of sexual excitement, whether repressed or acknowledged, explicitly or implicitly projected. Masters need slaves and slaves need their masters. The chief, the big man, the fascinating woman, the glamorous celebrity, the rich mogul, the powerful politician, while all standard vintage people without their accoutrements of prestigious (magical) power, magnetically attract many people wishing to surrender passively to the perceived superior power of what Carl Jung called the "mana-personality." However, such supernatural power or aura is in the eyes of the beholder, who wishes to be hypnotized and to fulfill his secret wish to be will-less. As Dostoevsky has written, "Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born." A smile, a song, or the projection of unconflicted authority - often that is all it takes for the spell to be cast.
Think of weasels. They are very vicious and can be found all around the world. Their cute faces belie their treacherous nature. They have the ability to fascinate their victims - fascinate means to cast a spell upon or hypnotize (from the Latin, fascinare, to bewitch). They do this by a stupefying song and dance,
a facility that paralyzes those they prey upon before they pounce upon them.
Most people have never seen weasels in the wild, for they are secretive creatures who go about their killing clandestinely. Whether they kill softly, I can't say. I've never heard their song, or the screaming of their victims.
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