Battle of the Bush Bulge

cyberman11 writes "Get out your tinfoil hats! Salon.com is running an article about Internet speculation that Bush uses an earpiece prompter and ignores his teleprompter while making speeches. Bush exhibited peculiar pauses between sentences while speaking during the debate and a large solid object appears between his shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern. He also interrupts himself in the middle of one of his responses by interjecting "Let me finish!" while he still had time remaining to answer and no one else had spoken." If Bush was wired, the receiver would be the size of a deck of cards or smaller, not some giant thing strapped to his back. Update: 10/09 16:10 GMT by J : The NYT contacted the Bush campaign and got a few answers that rule out the innocuous explanation that I had assumed.

Comments

Re: Nothing to see here

[Black Parrot]

> Let's be real people. Most of us dislike George W. as much as the other guy but do you really think they would try to cheat at the debates?

Yes. There's not much his inner circle wouldn't do to win the election.

> And don't you think that if they did cheat Bush would have done a better job?

That's debatable.

Pro the rumor:

• Google for bush prompter debate and you'll get some semi-plausible claims that he has been wearing one of these things all year.
  

Con the rumor:

• Part of the argument is that he was hunched over due to the wiring rather than straight-shouldered as usual, but that doesn't make sense if he has been wearing this thing for months.
  
• One site claims he was seen consulting a cheat sheet, but that also doesn't make sense if he was wired.
  

Who knows. But it will be interesting to watch him in the upcoming debate.