Forget "Kerry denies Botox"! How about "Bush denies earpiece"?

[scottxyz]

There have been a couple of posts on DU recently wondering whether Bush wears some kind of tiny earpiece when he does interviews - presumably so he can be "coached".

Looks like other people on the web have been wondering about this:

http://radiofreeusa.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2120
http://radiofreeusa.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2123

This would explain why when rebutting outrageous accusations he sometimes inexplicably prefaces his rebuttal with an affirmative word, such as "Sure..." - just buying time and sounding neutral until he gets the order from Karl Rove to say "No..." instead.

Example from MTP: A normal person who isn't wearing an earpiece waiting for Karl Rove to tell him how to react would hear the words "your deficit disaster" and come out swinging immediately saying "What disaster?" or "Hold on now." Take a look below for a reminder of how blathering Bush responded to this

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=fisking&s=sullivan020904

>>RUSSERT: The General Accounting Office , which are the nation's auditors ...

>>BUSH: Yes.

>>RUSSERT: ... have done a study of our finances. And this is what your legacy will be to the next generation.

>>It says that our current fiscal policy is unsustainable. They did a computer simulation that shows that balancing the budget in 2040 could require either cutting total federal spending in half or doubling federal taxes.

>>Why, as a fiscal conservative, as you like to call yourself, would you allow a $500 billion deficit and this kind of deficit disaster?

BUSH: Sure. The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years.

Now, I don't know what the assumptions are in the GAO report, but I do know that, if Congress is wise with the people's money, we can cut the deficit in half. And, at that point in time, as a percentage of GDP, the deficit will be relatively low.

= = =

{Andy Sullivan:} One simple, perhaps nit-picky, point: To the question "Why ... would you allow ... this kind of deficit disaster?" the president replies, "Sure." Sure? I think I know what the president means. It's a verbal place-saver, a pause. But it's surely worth pointing out that I know of no one who can reply to an allegation that he is about to deny with an actual affirmative. "Did you kill your wife?" "Sure. I never touched her." Who talks this way?*

Then the president uses the phrase "if Congress is wise with the people's money." But the point is that, in the last three years, the Congress has, by any measure, been grotesquely unwise with the people's money. And the president vetoed not a single spending measure. In fact, his own budgets exploded spending on both war and homeland security and every other government department, from Labor to Agriculture, before the pork-sniffers in Congress even got started. Then the president simply reiterates, and doesn't explain, something no one believes, which is that the deficit can be cut in half in five years--before, as even he would have to concede, it heads into the stratosphere.

So, in one response, we have a one-word answer that means the opposite of what it should; we have an irrelevance; and we have a pipe dream. And the president expects the people to trust him with their money? If your financial adviser came up with such an answer, after a huge drop in your personal savings and massive loans coming due in a few years, you'd fire him.

*Answer: A dummy on remote-control.

By the way, the person complaining about Bush's disastrous performance on MTP is none other than Republican House Homo Andy Sullivan. (It's a sad day for Republicanism when Bush-fellators Peggy Noonon, George F. Will and Andy Sullivan have no choice but to resurrect the "Bush is stupid" meme.)