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".
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.)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/12/bush_wireless_coaching/