SO, THE "W" IS FOR "WIRED" THEN?

Wow, this "Is Bush Wired" STILL hasn't really hit the mainstream American media, luckily, it refuses to go away. I guess most bloggers out there really feel strongly that the Leader of the Free World should be able to win a debate on his own, as opposed to losing with the help of Rove whispering sweet nothings in his ear for 90 minutes.

Anyway, here are some fun headlines, links and blurbs to give you a rough idea of what the latest is:

Technical expert: Bush was wired
Speculation continues to run wild about President Bush's mystery bulge. Since Friday, when Salon first raised questions about the rectangular bulge that was visible under Bush's suit coat during the presidential debates, many observers in the press and on the Internet have wondered aloud whether the verbally and factually challenged president might be receiving coaching via a hidden electronic device.

Now a technical expert who designs and makes such devices for the U.S. military 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. (Salon.com)


Was Bush packing Wi-Fi in TV debate?
Opinion Wireless technology might explain why US President George W. Bush performed better than usual in the last two presidential debates with his opponent, Senator John Kerry. (TheRegister.co.uk)

Spot the Bush bulge!
Win a Salon subscription.
Videotape or TiVo the presidential debate on Wednesday night. If you spot a suspicious bulge or wire on Bush during the debate, freeze the frame and e-mail it to Salon. Keep it real -- no Photoshop allowed! The first reader to send in convincing evidence from the third debate that Bush is wired wins a Salon Premium gift subscription. Submissions should be sent to Letters@salon.com. (Salon.com)

The Emperor's New Suit
Note to the White House press claque: Enough with the “internet conspiracy buffs” BS, hacks! This is something called a story. Remember those? Off your knees! (IsBushWired.Com)

Apparently, David Letterman has made a comment about this story on his show or someplace else. Sorry, I read something in passing and couldn't find the article again...

Please feel free to comment on this whole thing, as it seems to be a story that is neither going anywhere nor is it being embraced by the mainstream American media.

OH YEAH, and for the record, I believe it was the blogosphere that broke the "Is Bush Wired" story first, not Salon.com. Leave it to the "mainstream" American media to take credit for a story's wildfire when it's all about the blogs...


From Salon.com:

Technical expert: Bush was wired

A Bush spokesman tells Salon there is nothing to the story. But as the final presidential debate looms, speculation grows about the mysterious bulge.

By Dave Lindorff

Oct. 13, 2004 | Speculation continues to run wild about President Bush's mystery bulge. Since Friday, when Salon first raised questions about the rectangular bulge that was visible under Bush's suit coat during the presidential debates, many observers in the press and on the Internet have wondered aloud whether the verbally and factually challenged president might be receiving coaching via a hidden electronic device.

Now 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.

Darbut speculates that the device the president wears is provided by the Secret Service, noting, "They're not going to have him driving around the countryside on his ranch without being in instant contact with him."

No one in the White House or Bush campaign, however, has offered such an explanation. In fact, the Bush camp has shed little light on the mysterious protuberance, turning aside questions with dismissive humor or rising tones of exasperation. The president is "a regular guy," White House chief of staff Andy Card told Salon's Tim Grieve before the second debate last week. "Maybe his suit had a little lump in it or something." Campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish took the same line with the New York Times on Saturday: "It was most likely a rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric." But Devenish, the Times dryly noted, "could not say why the 'rumpling' was rectangular." Campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel brushed aside a questioner in a Washington Post chat session by saying, "I think you've been spending a little too much time on conspiracy Web sites."

On Tuesday, in response to repeated questions from Salon, the Bush camp finally issued a flat denial. Campaign spokesman Reed Dickens denied that Bush has ever used an electronic device to aid his public speaking, insisting the president was wearing "nothing during the debates." When asked about the pictures taken at the Bush ranch, Dickens said the president has never used any devices except for cutting tools and earplugs to protect his ears from the high-decibel chainsaw. Nor has the Secret Service outfitted Bush with a hidden communications device, according to Dickens: "He doesn't need something like that because the Secret Service is always with him. They ride in the truck in the back. Wherever he goes, they're with him."

Despite the official denials, the bulge brouhaha is still ballooning. On Tuesday, the New York Daily News produced a master tailor named Frank Shattuck who, after viewing photos from both debates, confirmed, "There's definitely something there, in between the shoulder blades. I can't say what it is, but it's not hidden very well. They should have come to me. I can hide a pistol under the breast."

In Orlando, Florida, TV station WFTV polled its viewers, asking, “Do you believe the accusations that President George W. Bush was wired during the presidential debate?” Of 35,000 respondents, only 42 percent answered no, while 36 percent replied yes, and 22 percent said possibly.

Meanwhile, blogs, chat rooms, bulletin boards -- and Salon's letters pages -- continue to buzz with discussion about Bush's possible electronic enhancement. Reports are flying around the Web about earlier televised events where audio glitches allegedly permitted TV viewers to hear someone directing what Bush to say, including his public remarks at the Sea Island G-8 summit meeting in June, his D-day anniversary speech in France, and a New York speech following 9/11.

One thing is certain: During the final presidential debate in Tempe, Ariz., on Wednesday night, all eyes will be on Bush's back.

salon.com

From TheRegister.Co.Uk:

Was Bush packing Wi-Fi in TV debate?

By Thomas C Greene
Published Tuesday 12th October 2004 09:58 GMT

Opinion Wireless technology might explain why US President George W. Bush performed better than usual in the last two presidential debates with his opponent, Senator John Kerry.

Unless he's reading a well-rehearsed speech, the President is normally much given to malapropisms and incoherent syntax. When confronted with questions for which he is not prepared, he typically muddles along unintelligibly when starting a reply, until he finds a path to one of his prepared talking points, as he repeatedly did during his televised prime-time press conference of 13 April 2004. It is not unusual for him to take refuge in his prepared points, regardless of what question is asked, and his answers are often irrelevant as well as confused. That is, he tends to stay "on message," rather than "on topic".
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Yet, during both presidential debates, he miraculously spoke in clear, organized sentences that were fairly relevant to the questions asked. He stumbled only occasionally, and then only briefly. The public has declared Kerry the winner of both debates - the first by a wide margin, and the second by a narrow one - but it is undeniable that the President far exceeded his baseline performance when confronting the unexpected. Or, said another way, he may have looked bad in comparison to Kerry, but he looked very good in comparison to himself.
Bush's bulge

Interestingly, screen shots of the first debate, courtesy of Cryptome, show a cigarette-pack-sized object positioned between Bush's shoulders, impressing itself on his suit jacket. A wire appears to run from the object, up towards the President's neck. This is best seen in the first column, fourth picture, and in the second column, fourth picture. (Note: The Register has not verified the authenticity of these images. They appear to come from a C-SPAN feed, but we cannot vouch for that.)

The impression is consistent with common wireless gear used by public speakers and entertainers, enabling a remote coach to offer prompts and suggestions. Typically, a rig consists of a wireless radio transmitter used by the coach, and a wireless transceiver used by the speaker. For stealth, the transceiver is concealed under clothing, and connected to a flexible wire device encircling the neck and worn under the shirt, which generates a signal picked up by a wireless receiver within the ear canal, much like a small hearing aid, and virtually invisible.
Additional evidence

The pictures might be suggestive, if not conclusive, but they are not the only evidence suggesting that Bush enjoyed the benefit of a wireless hookup. The very fact that he rarely stumbled or babbled itself suggests that something extraordinary was afoot. And there were a couple of moments in both debates where Bush's behavior is best explained by presuming a remote coach.

In the first debate, during a reply to Kerry, he ranted, "Let me finish!" Oddly, neither his opponent, Senator Kerry, nor the moderator, Jim Lehrer, was attempting to cut him off, and he had plenty of time left on the clock. One explanation is that he was disoriented and confused, as he often is without a script. But a somewhat better explanation, in view of the pictures and his sudden debating competence, is that he was addressing not his opponent or the moderator, but a remote coach who had prompted him to move on to a fresh topic before he was ready to do so.

In the second debate, Bush went off the rails, again in a way that suggests remote coaching. According to the rules, each candidate answers questions in turn. The one to whom the question is addressed gets two minutes to reply, and his opponent gets ninety seconds to rebut. At the moderator's discretion, there may be a one-minute extension, providing each candidate an additional thirty seconds on each question.

At one point, when Bush had taken a question, and Kerry had delivered a spirited rebuttal, moderator Charlie Gibson decided to extend the session. But he had trouble getting the words out, as Bush leapt up and leaned into his face, repeatedly demanding the very extension that Gibson was attempting, without success, to offer him.

Kerry: "We're gonna build alliances; we're not gonna go unilaterally [into war]; we're not gonna go alone, like this President did."

Gibson: "Mr. President, let's extend for one minute..."

Bush: "Lemme just one question; I, I gotta answer this."

Gibson: "Exactly, and with reservists being held on duty..."

Bush: "Let, let me just answer this, what he said about goin' alone."

Gibson: "Well, I wanted to get into the issue."

Bush: "You tell Tony Blair we're goin' alone. Tell Tony Blair we're goin' alone. Tell Servio Belisconi we're goin' alone..."

A fair reading of the scene would have Bush's remote coach urging him to respond at that moment, with enough vehemence to distract the President from what was happening right before his eyes. "You've got to respond to that - you can't let it go. He's insulting our allies," we can imagine the coach saying. And we can imagine Bush getting flustered to the point that he failed to grasp what the moderator was trying to tell him.
Detection

Technologically speaking, it would be painfully easy for Bush to have received remote, wireless guidance during the debates. But whether he would risk pulling such a cheesy stunt is less clear. Bush may be a generous risk-taker when it comes to spilling other people's blood in Iraq, but when his own political career is at stake, he tends to play a very cautious, conservative game. If the scam were ever exposed, he would certainly lose votes that, in such a tight race, he knows he can't afford to squander. A mere pat on the back from Kerry after a debate would suffice to reveal the game.

There are other ways, too. Surveillance specialist James Atkinson has written a good generic description of the wireless device that Bush would likely have been connected to, along with a list of the radio frequencies that such devices typically employ.

All that remains is for Kerry to pat Bush down during the next debate, or for some enterprising geek to use Atkinson's information to intercept the President's coaching session, and record it. In the interest of public disclosure, we note that the final presidential debate will be held on Wednesday, 13 October on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, at the Gammage Auditorium, located on the northeast corner of Mill Avenue and Apache Boulevard.

Not that we're suggesting anything. ®

Thomas C Greene is the author of Computer Security for the Home and Small Office, a comprehensive guide to system hardening, malware protection, online anonymity, encryption, and data hygiene for Windows and Linux.