Is Bush overprotected?(Debate bulge article w/funny quote by Terry M)

[unfrigginreal]

Elisabeth Bumiller
Monday, October 18, 2004
The New York Times

snip

The bulge - the strange rectangular box visible between the president's shoulder blades in the first debate - has triggered so much frenzied speculation on the Internet that it has become what literary critics call an objective correlative, or an object that evokes large emotions and ideas.

The bulge is in many ways related to the bubble, which is the word Bush himself uses to describe the isolation of the presidency. In this case, Bush's critics argue that he has so walled himself off from dissent in his bubble that he was ill prepared to take on the challenge of Senator John Kerry in their three debates. Therefore, Bush had to make use of the bulge, which is most popularly rumored to be a radio receiver that transmitted answers from an offstage adviser into a hidden presidential earpiece.

snip

Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was considerably more caustic.

"I think George Bush lives in the twilight zone," he said after last Wednesday's debate. As for the bulge, McAuliffe said that "if he had an earpiece on during that debate and those are the best answers that he could do, then he should be impeached and everybody who works for him should never be allowed to work again." Finished with his sound bite, McAuliffe grew serious.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/17/news/letter.html