Was Bush WIRED for the first debate?

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 9:30am

Salon.com reports that Bush had a radio receiver taped to his back during the first debate so he could receive messages via a tiny hearing-aid-like device in his ear. They back this up with a photo. I have no way of verifying the story, but the Commission on Presidential Debates has verified that one of the rules of engagement the Bush campaign insisted on was no camera shots of the candidates from behind (which one of the pool cameras did anyway). This story is either investigative journalism at its best or a horrible hoax. The mainstream media won't touch it a barge pole, so read it and judge for yourself. If you are not a Salon.com subscriber, you have to sign up for a free day pass to read the full story. The opening paragraph:

Oct. 8, 2004 | "Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor 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?"

I obtained a copy of the debate video and the Red Hawk image intensification software (developed for NASA), which combines multiple images into a sharper image and then enhanced the contrast in Photoshop. No other manipulation was done. I stand 100% behind the fact that this image was taken from the debate video, but interpretation is up to you.

(Come on, all you Broadway kids...does that box look familiar?)

Updated On: 10/9/04 at 09:30 AM

[mominator]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 9:35am

Hmmmmmm in the words of Arte Johnson "interesting verry interesting!"

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 9:36am

When I saw the shot of the prez from the rear angle during the debate, I commented to my friend that there was something wrong with the prez's suit and the way it was "laying" across his shoulders/back. This makes complete sense.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 9:36am

Wow... so a basic analogy would be the dumb guy being fed what words to say by Steve Martin in the movie Roxanne. A comedy.

Perfect.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 9:37am

Looks like a receiver to me. Hey, if Brando could wear one in his later years on stage, then so can Bush, right? Just hope that someone asks to check for electronic devices before the Friday debate...and why is the mainstream press not reporting this?

Same reason they didn't report the massive medication dosages Bush is on when that was reported a few months ago. We have apparently become a country where the press is only 'free' to report what is not dangerous to this administration. Funny that didn't apply to Clinton and Lewinski where they gleefully pulled out every gory detail.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 10:03am

Here's the whole article:

====

Bush's mystery bulge
The rumor is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?

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By Dave Lindorff

printe-mail

Oct. 8, 2004 | Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor 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 behavior 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, signaling 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 Web site 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, Wash., 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.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Dave Lindorff is the author of the new book "This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy." Reach him at [e-mail].

[Plum]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 10:43am

It's one thing to use a sort of audio teleprompter because you're dyslexic- if he was really got his lines fed to him during the debate, that's downright sad. They couldn't even feed him very good lines.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 10:52am

It wouldn't surprise me one bit. The Bush administration is getting desperate. Yesterday they told news channels Bush was going to do a policy address so they could trick the channels into broadcasting a campaign speech - another lie. Why would cheating in a debate be any different than anything else this president has ever done?

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 11:15am

Definately looks like a battery pack to me!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 11:55am

c'mon, folks, if he was being fed words during the debate don't you think that whoever was doing it might have done a better job? i mean after all it would have been karl "i am the devil "rove at the other end of the line, and he's acknowledged around the world as an evil genius. but, hey, why question the logic of salon?

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 11:57am

Bush can't talk and listen at the same time. The thing started to cut out. MANY reasons.

[Plum]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 11:59am

Explanation number 1 doesn't work if he's been using it for speeches. Unless was really nervous because he didn't have the words prepared and written as well.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 12:00pm

Updated On: 10/8/04 at 12:00 PM

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 12:00pm

Yeah Popa, but it sure would explain all his snarly faces -- trying to listen to two voices at once, not being able to understand/digest two things at one time, and then having to fall back on his one note answer.

[Plum]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 12:04pm

Ah, that's right. The other variable was that he had Kerry talking and was supposed to at least appear to listen to him.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 5:01pm

papaloves: Your argument would make perfect sense except for the fact that there doesn't seem to be anyone in the Bush campaign who can articulate policy any better than HE can.

That's part of the problem. Besides, you wouldn't want to be feeding him lines and rhetoric so obviously over his head or it would sound REALLY fake.

As for the snarly faces mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Bush does this all the time and always has in debates and face to face discussions with opponents. He manages to look defensive and smug at the same time. A pretty good trick

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 5:14pm

c'mon, sam, if they're going to go as far as feeding him lines at the debate are they gonna worry about whether it sounded "over his head"? besides, cheney, while not necessarily the most cuddly of subjects managed to articulate fine (i didn't say completely truthfully) some positions. as much as you folks like to make out that he's dumb as dirt, and that first debate gave the impression of a man not to quick on his feet (to be generous) he's managed to make it through a few encounters with humans without completely offending any and all there or drooling on himself. go back to the tapes of 2000, he was confident and much more articulate than we've yet seen. of course, thse debates were after mccain and the boys had handed him his ass during the primaries and he realized he had to take the whole thing seriously.

i mentioned the part about the faces in another thread and pointed out then that if he did it he'd look like a a**. that was before the debate. eh, if the same bush shows up tonight, it'll be kerry in a landslide.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 5:35pm

papa says: "if the same bush shows up tonight, it'll be kerry in a landslide."

The old Bush is unlikely ever to come back. The damage to a user's brain from years of alcohol and cocaine abuse is irreversible.

Call it "wet brain" or "Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome," it's a very sad thing when you see it in a loved one or a family member. I believe he's the first sitting president to suffer from it.

The RNC thought they could "handle" it the way they handled Reagan's Alzheimers, which he was progressing thoughout his presidency. They fed Reagan lines, but he was a good enough "B" actor to deliver them well. Bush can't memorize like Reagan could. He certainly can't speak with conviction like Reagan could. And Reagan didn't have the stupid (and evil) neocons making such bad decisions.

Let's hope enough of the American people have the sense to put him out of his misery on November 2. But it ain't gonna be pretty to watch him deteriorate.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 6:09pm

interesting, this is from the media frund from 2001...

http://rtmark.com/f/get/funds/media.html?inline=1#GWBB

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 6:12pm

I'm gonna pull a DGrant/Rathnait/Auggie flip flop* and defend Bush by saying who cares? It's kinda like the math teacher who wouldn't let you use a calculator on a math test--hello! That's what we are going to use in real life!



*and I say that with love and humor and all the money can buy

[shesings]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 6:42pm

I have to say I agree with Pap. In all honesty I'd prefer if he was being fed things, and that it would come out and cause the American public to realize he is the disgrace I think he is. However I think most likely this is nothing but a rumor and a photoshopped pic. I mean really. They would have had made him more intellegent - one would hope. If he was wired and he still did that bad - well then God help us as a nation!

[shesings]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 7:46pm

wait a sec ... um maybe it was the battery pack for his microphone ....

[Type_A_Tiff]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 7:51pm

I was thinking that too, but didn't they have mikes on the actual podium?

[shesings]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 9:18pm

they also had them on their lapels

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 10/8/04 at 10:48pm

it's body armor.

no landslide.

deep breath.