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Did Kerry Use a Cheat Sheet?
mrbrown1602 writes "The Drudge Report is reporting that repeated viewing of video from the first Presidential Debate shows Senator John Kerry reaching into his coat pocket for what looks like to be a piece of paper, and he proceeds to unfold it on the lectern. According to the rules set by the Commission on Presidential Debates, candidates are not allowed to bring anything with them on stage (even something as simple as a pen, which is what Kerry's people says it was), and everything they may need (water, tissues, pens, etc.) are provided at the lectern. So what DID Senator Kerry bring out there, anyways?" There's also a QuickTime movie.
Grow up kids!
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
And on a second note, the Drudge Report has always been a republican, or at the very least conservatively-biased, report. Matthew Drudge is always looking to bash anyone who isn't republican and always trying to impress his buddy Bill O'Reilly.
Just my two cents.
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I'm not a vegan because I love animals, I'm a vegan because I hate plants!
I suppose to in the spirit of equal time I should repeat myself from the article earlier today:
Can we please discuss something that matters?
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
I heard Drudge (driving in the father-in-law's car, no radio control!) and he was humping this on Sunday. I can't believe it is still bouncing around -- slooooow day on /.
.Mac account hosting that QT movie will meltdown from the "Slashdot Effect" and we can all move onto more vital things -- like whether Bill Gates is the Devil or just a very close facisimile. (I vote Devil.)
If I recall, all those rules between the two candidates' camps were loudly decried as trivial, over-the-top and plain silly. But, since GWB performed the Dance of the Sourpuss King, his henchmen are now treating those rules like the Ten Commandments. Puhleez.
Hopefully, the
PS - You can tell he's putting a cap on a pen at the end of the clip. So there's your news: Illegal Lucky Pen Tips Debate to Kerry.
Quote Pres. Bush: I could have gotten away with four more years, if it weren't that lucky pen!
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
It's nice to read a bit about the coming elections over the pond and all, but come on. I mean, seriously, why is this kind of crap on /. front page? This is tabloid stuff, not "News for Nerds."
Electronic voting machines, fine. NASA budget news, fine. IP related politics, fine. Duplicates of the above, fine. But this article is ridiculous...
It's pretty sad to see what the great Internet and blogs have done to actual discussion and debate about the issues.
Neither Kerry or Bush (or their people) are stupid enough to cheat at the debate because getting caught would far outweigh any plausable gains from reducing the chances that their candidate might screw up. Just show a little common sense everybody. This is an implausable as any pseudo-science or elaborate conspiracy theory, and only people of those intelligence levels should believe or even talk about these things.
It would be nice if we could argue about whether Bush or Kerry as President would be better for the future of America. But no, the morons who can run a web browser and post to a blog would rather read and write this nonsense and retreat into fantasyland of crap unrealistic nonsense. And rather than ignore this extremism like we used to, it becomes the most visible part of the debate. This is a pretty sad result of what should have been a great breakthrough in free speech.
pffft A central theme of Michael Moore's controversial documentary (if you can call it a documentary) "Fahrenheit 9/11" (and the connection you refer to.) is a bare allegation that Saudi Arabian interests provided $1.4 billion to firms connected to the family and friends of President George W. Bush.
However, as a special Newsweek investigative report notes, there is really less - not more - than meets the eye re the dramatic Moore claim:
# Nearly 90 percent of that claimed amount, $1.18 billion, comes from contracts in the early to mid-1990's that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country's military and National Guard. The "Bush" connection: The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board once included the president's father, George H.W. Bush.
# But, points out Newsweek, former president Bush didn't join the Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998 -- five months after Carlyle had already sold BDM to another defense firm.
# As for the sitting president's own Carlyle link, his service on the board ended when he quit to run for Texas governor -- a few months before the first of the Saudi contracts to the unrelated BDM firm was awarded.
# The Carlyle Group is hardly a "Bush Inc," noted Newsweek - but rather features a roster of bipartisan Washington power figures. "Its founding and still managing partner is Howard Rubenstein, a former top domestic policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. Among the firm's senior advisors is Thomas "Mack" McLarty, Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff, and Arthur Levitt, Clinton's former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of its other managing partners is William Cannard, Clinton's chairman of the Federal Communications Commission."
# According to the report, the movie neglects to offer any evidence that Bush White House intervened in any way to bolster the interests of the Carlyle Group. In fact, the one major Bush administration decision that most directly affected the company's interest was the cancellation of a $11 billion program for the Crusader rocket artillery system. The Crusader was manufactured by United Defense, which had been wholly owned by Carlyle until it spun the company off in a public offering in October, 2001. Carlyle still owned 47 percent of the shares in the defense company at the time that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld canceled the Crusader program the following year.
# As to Moore's dealings with the matter of the departing Saudis flown out of the United States in the days after the September 11 terror attacks, the 9/11 commission found that the FBI screened the Saudi passengers, ran their names through federal databases, interviewed 30 of them and asked many of them "detailed questions." "Nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country," the commission stated.
# The entity in the White House that approved the flights wasn't the president, or the vice president -- it was Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism czar who was a holdover from the Clinton administration. Clarke has testified that he gave the approval conditioned on FBI clearance.
your point #1 ya so????
The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore. According to the narrator, "Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy....All of a sudden the other networks said, 'Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'"
We then see NBC anchor Tom Brokaw stating, "All of us networks made a mistake and projected Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our mistake."
Moore thus creates the false impression that the networks withdrew their claim about Gore winning Florida when they heard that Fox said that Bush won Florida.
To sum it up about the Film IMHO!!! it is amazing what one can do with a little editing.
#3 #4 #5 And I suppose you are now going to tell me that Bush pulled a
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I'd say about 50 times less people died without cause today than any day that Sadam Hussein was in power.
I'd have to agree its unlikely it was a wire, or if it was the person that was coaching him over it was as brain damaged as Bush.
If its a bullet proof vest then it tends to suggest Bush and his Secret Service are paranoid chicken shits. He was inside a tightly controlled auditorium, and I imagine its a given everyone was screened on the way in. I doubt you could find a much safer venue.
He is routinely in campaign appearances in shirt sleeves where I doubt he's wearing a vest and he has people 360 around him.
If it is a bullet proof vest I guess its indicative of how afraid of Democrats he is. In his campaign appearances only loyal Republican's are allowed. Here half the people in the hall were Democrats so apparently George is deathly afraid for his life in the presence of Democrats.
I'm compelled to think this may be further proof that Bush is a paranoid sociopath after having lived the life of a bubble boy for the last 4 years.
@de_machina