Bush fed answers at Debate?

[King of Creation]

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/14513

At the first debate, a cameraman was startled to be accosted by a Secret Serviceman, who demanded to know what frequency at which he was tuned! Cameras do not operate on any frequency as such, however, all stage crew are directed by commands from wireless headsets. We are told that professional broadcasters and concert musicians utilize tiny earbuds that go deep in the ear channel and are virtually undetectable. (Otherwise, how would Madonna, Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff and Britney pretend to sing?!!)

Watch tonight's debate in St. Louis carefully! You may rest assured that the Slash Dot generation will be buzzing around outside monitoring frequencies. Got yr tinfoil hat on?

http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/0 ... index.html

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.

[Guest]

If he sings "Girl You Know It's True" at the next debate, we'll know for sure.

[Franz Schubert]

No, if Karl Rove was feeding him answers, then he wouldn't have been bumbling around like such an idiot. Unless he couldn't think, listen, and talk at the same time, which he probably can't.

[MurPHy]

My vote is that he was packing heat. Beats me as to why, maybe he has a lucky pistol that he carries everywhere? Kinda like a lucky rabbit's foot, Texan style.

[airsoft guy]

Why would they put a radio on his back like that? Why would you put ANYTHING there since you can't reach it and your clothes make the most contact there. It's most likely body armor since there are people who wish to kill the president, and as we all know many people have tried with past presidents. If it were a wire it would be better to have it taped to his chest or something liek that. Same deal with a gun, although I don't think it would really be an issue if they found out the president was packing. He's the president for Christ's sake.

[atoga]

Well, obviously Bush was fed answers to a degree. Radios on the back aside, what Bush said during the debate was far from impeccable, and some of the parts where he sagged were quite obviously improvised. If you think he's wearing some kind of transmitter, though, you're just an idiot.

[Jack_Deth]

Nah, he's just a bumbling idiot.

[POOPERSCOOPER]

It just another conspiracy against Bush like the million others.

[Lunchmeat]

Bush is an alien werewolf from Paris.

[ExtremeDrinker]

Bush is like Quato from Total Recall, except his mutant twin is on his back...And the mutant twin, like in Total Recall, is really the smart one.



TEH TRUTH MUST BE HERD!

[jetbaby]

Why would it be body armor? Wearing a slab of kevlar on your back will do nothing when you are always facing the audience. Not to mention the fact that there was no indication through movement that he would be wearing such bulky protection.

[airsoft guy]

Why would it be body armor? Wearing a slab of kevlar on your back will do nothing when you are always facing the audience. Not to mention the fact that there was no indication through movement that he would be wearing such bulky protection.

Armor would be the more logical answer, being as only a shithead would wear a wire in that particular spot. I don't care how dumb you think Bush is, he has handlers that know what they're doing and they wouldn't but a wire there.

Besides, look at the size of Kerry's head, he's obviously the alien, that big peice of hair is just covering the command center. You pull that thing off aqnd you'll find a little cockpit with three Martians running everything.

[Sol Invictus]

It isn't body armor. I've worn a suit of kevlar myself and it bulges in the front a lot more than it does in the back, since that's where most of the protection is. Unless he was packing some heavy duty ceramic plates back there, I just don't think so.

His handlers are as stupid as everyone thinks he is, or crap like the Iraqi torture photos wouldn't have been leaked so easily. Leave it up to Karl Rove to pacify its effects by making up some bullshit about how England tortured people first, though.

[fallout ranger]

why the hell would YOU be wearing body armor rex?

[Franz Schubert]

It's most likely body armor since there are people who wish to kill the president, and as we all know many people have tried with past presidents.

No, people only kill the good presidents.

[Sol Invictus]

Dad's in the military. Thought I'd try it on.

[MurPHy]

Dad's in the military. Thought I'd try it on.

Cool! Do you get to play with his service rifle too?

[jetbaby]

ARMOR?! This is AMERICA, son. We don't give our boys armor. Sadly, no lightsabers either...

[Megatron]

So what?

Perhaps the president needs to be updated on ramon salazar and if he needs to shoot jack bauer out of the sky