Don't Worry, George -- We've Got Your Back

One of my wife's favorite stories of the past week has been "Was Bush Wired?" During the second debate there seemed to be a clear something under his jacket between his shoulder blades.

Given Dubbya's dismal performance in the first two debates, I seriously doubted the story. After all, not only would the Republicans be taking a huge chance on being caught (either by Kerry giving him a friendly pat on the back during their introductory/final greetings or by someone picking up the signal transmission in the hall) but even if he was wired it seems that the "Voices in his head" caused him more confusion and hindered rather than helped.

The story has made the rounds on the internet and has been blogfodder for a while as well. (I think I can take credit for the term "blogfodder") In fact, there's a blog devoted to the issue: Is Bush Wired?

Salon.com has not >one, but two articles on the subject (October 8 and October 13).

From the October 8 article:

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.

and

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."

And from the October 13th article:

a technical expert who designs and makes such devices for the U.S. military and private industry tells Salon that he believes the bulge is indeed a transceiver designed to receive electronic signals and transmit them to a hidden earpiece lodged in Bush's ear canal.

"There's no question about it. It's a pretty obvious one -- larger than most because it probably has descrambling capability," said Alex Darbut, technical and business development vice president for Resistance Technology in Arden Hills, Minn. Darbut examined photographs of the president's back taken from the Fox News video feed at the first presidential debate in Coral Gables, Fla., as well as 2002 photos of the president driving and working in a T-shirt on his Crawford ranch, which were posted on the White House Web site.

So, I'll keep an extra eye out on Dubbya' back tonight -- thanks to the cameras that Fox has put behind the candidates despite the Republicans having fought to exclude from the debates.

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