Was the president wired during both debates?

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Good grief! Do we have to do a body search pat down of the candidates before the debates? If this turns out to be true, Bush is toast.
---BBB

Friday October 8, 2004
Bush's mystery bulge

The rumour is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?

By Dave Lindorff, author of This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy.

This article has been provided by Salon through a special arrangement with Guardian Newspapers Limited.
Visit the Salon site at Salon.com

Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumour flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Bloggers are burning up their keyboards with speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behaviour during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh - Let me finish - The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signalling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish.

Hot on the conspiracy trail, I tried to track down the source of the photo. None of the Bush-is-wired bloggers, however, seemed to know where the photo came from. Was it possible the bulge had been Photoshopped onto Bush's back by a lone conspiracy buff? It turns out that all of the video of the debate was recorded and sent out by Fox News, the pool broadcaster for the event. Fox sent feeds from multiple cameras to the other networks, which did their own on-air presentations and editing.

To watch the debate again, I ventured to the website of the most sober network I could think of: C-SPAN. And sure enough, at minute 23 on the video of the debate, you can clearly see the bulge between the president's shoulder blades.

Bloggers stoke the conspiracy with the claim that the Bush administration insisted on a condition that no cameras be placed behind the candidates. An official for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which set up the lecterns and microphones on the Miami stage, said the condition was indeed real, the result of negotiations by both campaigns. Yet that didn't stop Fox from setting up cameras behind Bush and Kerry. The official said that "microphones were mounted on lecterns, and the commission put no electronic devices on the president or Senator Kerry." When asked about the bulge on Bush's back, the official said, "I don't know what that was."

So what was it? Jacob McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the Spy Store, a high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Washington, looked at the Bush image on his computer monitor. "There's certainly something on his back, and it appears to be electronic," he said. McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible. He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by another broadcaster.

Mystery-bulge bloggers argue that the president may have begun using such technology earlier in his term. Because Bush is famously prone to malapropisms and reportedly dyslexic, which could make successful use of a teleprompter problematic, they say the president and his handlers may have turned to a technique often used by television reporters on remote stand-ups. A reporter tapes a story and, while on camera, plays it back into an earpiece, repeating lines just after hearing them, managing to sound spontaneous and error free.

Suggestions that Bush may have using this technique stem from a D-day event in France, when a CNN broadcast appeared to pick up - and broadcast to surprised viewers - the sound of another voice seemingly reading Bush his lines, after which Bush repeated them. Danny Schechter, who operates the news site MediaChannel.org, and who has been doing some investigating into the wired-Bush rumors himself, said the Bush campaign has been worried of late about others picking up their radio frequencies - notably during the Republican Convention on the day of Bush's appearance. "They had a frequency specialist stop me and ask about the frequency of my camera," Schechter said. "The Democrats weren't doing that at their convention."

Repeated calls to the White House and the Bush national campaign office over a period of three days, inquiring about what the president may have been wearing on his back during the debate, and whether he had used an audio device at other events, went unreturned. So far the Kerry campaign is staying clear of this story. When called for a comment, a press officer at the Democratic National Committee claimed on Tuesday that it was "the first time" they'd ever heard of the issue. A spokeswoman at the press office of Kerry headquarters refused to permit me to talk with anyone in the campaign's research office. Several other requests for comment to the Kerry campaign's press office went unanswered.

As for whether we really do have a Milli Vanilli president, the answer at this point has to be, God only knows.

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I thought you meant was he "wired?" Like he was on some kind of steroid for the cerebrum.

In this last debate my description of him is like "Ross Perot on Steroids."

Your notion is more tantalizing having him as a Karl Van Doren on the Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question (in Philly its only worth sixty four singles).

I meant anabolic steroids. I don't think they make drugs that make you smarter - only bigger and faster. Dr. Leary was on to something but they won't let the research out, or let it continue.

Look at what those Canadian drugs did to Ben Johnson! His eyes were yellower than a pair of fertile egg yolks.

Bush wired? No way man. He was more sober than a ninth circuit judge.

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padmasambava wrote:

I thought you meant was he "wired?" Like he was on some kind of steroid for the cerebrum.

In this last debate my description of him is like "Ross Perot on Steroids."

Your notion is more tantalizing having him as a Karl Van Doren on the Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question (in Philly its only worth sixty four singles).

I meant anabolic steroids. I don't think they make drugs that make you smarter - only bigger and faster. Dr. Leary was on to something but they won't let the research out, or let it continue.

Look at what those Canadian drugs did to Ben Johnson! His eyes were yellower than a pair of fertile egg yolks.

Bush wired? No way man. He was more sober than a ninth circuit judge.

Anyone have these pic's? Would love to see what they are seeing.

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Web wags are wondering if W was wired
Web wags are wondering if W was wired
By Stephanie Schorow
Saturday, October 9, 2004
Boston Hearld

Get out those tinfoil hats, boys and girls!

A conspiracy theory percolating on the Internet contends President Bush [related, bio] was secretly wired during the first presidential debate so he could be fed instructions on what to say.

Audiogate (or Promptergate) got rolling when left-leaning bloggers posted comments about a mysterious bulge on the president's back, filmed by cameras stationed behind him during the first debate.

Bloggers who studied the video as if it were a document from Dan Rather posted speculation that the bulge was a radio receiver under Bush's jacket that broadcast to a hidden earphone. As in: From Karl Rove's lips to Bush's ear.

Oliver Stone wannabes claimed Bush's interjection of ``Let me finish'' - 30 seconds remained for his response - was made to the voice in the earphone.

Quicker than you can say, ``JFK assassination,'' www.isbushwired.com appeared. By yesterday, the online magazine Salon had posted a story on ``Bush's Mysterious Bulge.''

``Was the president wired? No!'' Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman shouted to reporters in St. Louis yesterday. `It's laughable.''

Asked where the story may have come from, Mehlman said, ``People have too much time on their hands.''

A disgusted Ron Kaufman, a longtime GOP strategist, called Audiogate ``totally ridiculous'' and ``the dumbest thing I ever heard of.''

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He certainly looks wired in the photo.

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Bulge Under President's Coat in 1st Debate Stirs Speculation
Bulge Under President's Coat in First Debate Stirs Speculation
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 9, 2004; Page A16

A photograph that flew around the Internet this week shows a boxy bulge in the back of President Bush's suit coat during the first debate, leading to widespread cyber-speculation that he was wired to receive help with his answers.

Bush's aides tried to laugh off the controversy, with one official joking about "little green men on the grassy knoll."

A slightly raised square patch appeared on President Bush's back in the first debate. (Tv Pool Photo) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18734-2004Oct8.html

Several officials, pressed for a serious answer, flatly denied that anything was fishy about the hump. These officials said they had checked and that there was nothing under Bush's jacket -- not a wire, not a transmitter, not a garage door opener. Bush was not wearing a protective vest, sources said.

The White House refused to provide an on-the-record comment, saying that it would dignify a baseless issue, and referred questions to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

"It is preposterous," campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. He declined to elaborate or to suggest what could have produced the unusual photo.

Bush's aides said the suit was well-tailored and did not have a roll in back. One official, in a cheeky reference to a discredited story about Bush's National Guard record, suggested checking with document experts at CBS News to see if the photo had been doctored.

The subject helped fill the lull before last night's second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe pointed to Bush's shaky, repetitive performance in the first debate. "If he had an earpiece and those were his answers, they ought to fire every person in the back room," he said.

Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel, during a Web chat on washingtonpost.com, was asked if Bush wore "any kind of electronic device on his back during the first debate that allowed him to receive information."

"Senator Kerry? Is that you?," Stanzel typed back. "I think you've been spending a little too much time on conspiracy Web sites. Did you hear the one about Elvis moderating tonight's debate?"

A photo on the Web this week also raised questions about Kerry, showing him taking something out of his pocket when he reached the lectern at the first debate. Aides said it was a pen; debate rules said the pens were supposed to be in place. Aides said removing it from his pocket was a nervous habit.

Journalists had been passing around the link to the photo all week, and yesterday Salon.com posted an article about the photo that began, "Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry?"

One Web site http://www.isbushwired.com/ has opened with the sole mission of serving as "a clearinghouse for discussion of whether President Bush uses an earpiece through which he's fed lines and cues by offstage advisers."

This is what the device looks like:
http://accelerated-promotions.com/consumer-electronics/two-way-radio.htm

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Online pundits push up political temperature

Simon Jeffery
Saturday October 9, 2004
The Guardian

Back in 2000, when Al Gore battled George Bush for the White House, only the most technologically-savvy had heard of weblogs.
Four years later, the self-appointed army of fact checkers and commentators has become a parallel media for many US internet users.

And what, for Kerry supporters, was a terrible late summer and September (partly because of the blog-boosted impact of the Swift Boat veterans) has now turned into a rosy autumn. The pro-Bush bloggers, who scored a hit in securing an apology from CBS over its story on the president's time in the Texas air guard, were last week in retreat.

Joshua Micah Marshall, who maintains the respected Talking Points Memo, goes in for the kill over what he sees as the Bush administration's collapsing rationale for the Iraq war. He is most incensed by the president's attempt to draw the oil for food programme into the mix. "That's the new casus belli - corruption," he writes. "You can't make this stuff up."

"[It] makes me feel not only sorry for my country but also sorry for the Kerry campaign's strategists [...] What sort of supple and outside-box mind can possibly predict what arguments the president and his advisers will come up with next?"

Wonkette, called "gossipy, raunchy, potty-mouthed" by the New York Times, throws in a few satirical suggestions of possible new justifications for the war. That Saddam "reads books", "throws like a girl" or "is too tall" (does this all sound a little like Senator Kerry?) are in her top 10.

The growing confidence leads Dave Pell's Electablog to republish its post on the president's supposedly Oedipal relationship with his father. The argument is that Bush Jr, as Mr Kerry suggested in the first debate, should have taken advice from Bush Sr over Iraq but, Pell argues, he wanted to be seen to succeed in the Middle East where his father did not. "Bush is like Hamlet without the indecisiveness," he says scathingly.

Over at Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, which is moving away from Mr Bush, some readers are a little perturbed. "Slow down on the Republican bashing, my boy. We understand that you're unhappy with the way the war is being handled, as are many of us. But dear God! Do you really think Kerry would improve things?" writes one.

Contributors at Daily Kos, a committed Kerry site, meanwhile, find the news report they are dreading. The Wisconsin television station Wbay put a story on its website saying Mr Bush had won the election.

A later apology explained that its automated system had picked up an Associated Press test report and omitted the word "test". The apology's headline pleases Markos Moulitsas, the blogger behind the site. "Me, I loved the part that says, 'President Bush Did Not Win Election on October 7'. Let's work hard to make that sentence prophetic," he writes.

But only a fool or partisan would call the election now. Cinemocracy, which dedicates itself to the "nexus of Hollywood and Washington", cautions that political fortunes can rise and fall, just like those on TV. "The 2004 presidential debates are taking shape as a multi-instalment mini-series," writes Alan Schroeder. "Recurring characters, and a narrative line driven by the ups and downs of the stars.

"[But] as every TV viewer knows, a mini-series unfolds according to predictable rhythms. Act One establishes, Act Two complicates, Act Three resolves."

Even then, the curtain call is not until November.

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We're all cogs in a blog election.

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Larger photos of both debates show bulge in back of W's suit
Larger photos of both debates show bulge in back of Bush's suit:

http://community.democrats.com/forums/discussions.cfm?forumid=170&topicid=139646

Click on bobfertik, then on Whos got Bush's back? to see the photos and comments.

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New York Times
October 9, 2004
The Mystery of the Bulge in the Jacket
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - What was that bulge in the back of President Bush's suit jacket at the presidential debate in Miami last week?

According to rumors racing across the Internet this week, the rectangular bulge visible between Mr. Bush's shoulder blades was a radio receiver, getting answers from an offstage counselor into a hidden presidential earpiece. The prime suspect was Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's powerful political adviser.

When the online magazine Salon published an article about the rumors on Friday, the speculation reached such a pitch that White House and campaign officials were inundated with calls.

First they said that pictures showing the bulge might have been doctored. But then, when the bulge turned out to be clearly visible in the television footage of the evening, they offered a different explanation.

"There was nothing under his suit jacket," said Nicolle Devenish, a campaign spokeswoman.

"It was most likely a rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric."

Ms. Devenish could not say why the "rumpling" was rectangular.

Nor was the bulge from a bulletproof vest, according to campaign and White House officials; they said Mr. Bush was not wearing one.

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Is Bush Wired?
Is Bush wired?

http://www.isbushwired.com/

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Oz papers focus on Bush bulge mystery
Sunday Times, Oz
Papers focus on Bush bulge mystery
From correspondents in Washington
10oct04

A MYSTERIOUS bulge under the US president's suit jacket during his first debate with Democratic rival John Kerry drew the attention of two top US newspapers today after days of feverish Internet speculation.

George W. Bush's campaign has dismissed the "mystery bulge" as nothing more than a wrinkle in the presidential jacket and derided speculation that he was wired as the "ridiculous" speculation of Internet conspiracy nuts.

"Credible news organisation have taken a serious look at that and decided not to run the story," said Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel. "People have been spending too much time dealing with Internet conspiracies. It's ridiculous."

Still, the bulge drew the attention today of respected mainstream dailies The New York Times and The Washington Post.

"The Mystery of the Bulge in the Jacket" was the headline on the brief Times item which accompanied its extensive coverage of yesterday's second presidential debate in St Louis, Missouri.

The Post ran a much longer story under the headline "Bulge Under President's Coat in First Debate Stirs Speculation".

Political web logs, or blogs, have been buzzing about the bulge since the first presidential debate in Miami on September 30. The rectangular protrusion in the middle of Bush's back is visible in news photos and television footage.

A number of anti-Bush bloggers have speculated that the president was wearing a hidden earpiece and that the bulge was a radio receiver linked to a political aide prompting him from offstage.

A Bush campaign spokeswoman said it was nothing more than a question of tailoring.

"There was nothing under his suit jacket," Nicolle Devenish, the Bush campaign's communications director, told the Times.

"It was most likely a rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric."

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On closer examination, the bulge appears to have the shape of Dick Cheney's hand.

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http://www.maxuk.net/mt/

The first video panel at the top of the page... supposedly the frequency was picked up and people viewing could here the person reading Bush his lines, and then Bush would repeat them.

I say supposedly, because I don't know if perhaps someone changed the audio. Interesting, though.

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Edgar
Edgar, you are sooo bad!

I think a better wire mate for Bush is probably Karen Hughes, since she's the one that controls all of his public utterances including editing his speeches written by others. She, better than anyone else, knows how to speak "Bush."

The best thing about this rumor, that has now been picked up by the mainstream press, is that I would think Bush would not dare wear a wire again for the last debate. If that is the case, he is on his own---and he doesn't do well by himself. It would be a delight to see him make a fool of himself in the last debate.

If the wire rumor is true, then Bush is no better than a steroid using athlete competing with athletes that are clean---anything to win, even unfairly.

BBB

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Better if he were to learn the art of lip sync. Then then the words would be said most effectively and he wouldn't say the wrong thing by mishearing the words.

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That's not Dick's hand, it's Karl's hand.

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Maybe they take turns. It must be fun to see him dance.

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Squinney
Squinney, that is an amazing tape, thanks for posting it.

Bush being wired could explain his odd speech cadence that has always puzzled me. He hesitates mid-sentences in such an inappropriate way. If he is being fed his lines, this would explain his pause patterns.

Its one thing to use a wire in public speeches instead of a teleprompter (his dyslexia is a real reading handicap). It's another thing to use it during a debate where thinking on one's feet is a real test and where rules against cheat sheets and notes are prohibited.

Shame on Bush if he was wired during the debates. That's like fixing a fight or a game. Athletes have gone to jail or been fined and banned from sport for such crimes. Maybe Martha Stewart can fix up a cell for Bush in Camp Cupcake.

BBB

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Did anyone listen to the video? Any opinions?

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Was the president wired during both debates?

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