This is a cycling newsgroup you mungbean.
"George Herbert Walker" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Was Bush Wired? Sure Looks Like It.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/11/10_407.htmlA NASA photo expert's analysis makes it clear: Bush is lying -- he
wore some kind of device in each of the three debates. So why won't
the media go near this story?By Dave Lindorff
October 30, 2004
A leading NASA scientist who normally spends his days analyzing and
enhancing photo images sent across the depths of space by the Cassini
and other space probes has turned his expertise to images of the
president in his three debates. His conclusion: "George Bush is
obviously wearing something -- probably a receiver of some kind --
under his jacket for each debate."Robert M. Nelson, who has worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
at the California Institute of Technology for some three decades,
provided a dramatic photo of the bulge under the jacket at the first
debate to Salon.com which posted it Oct. 29. Now -- working at home
and using his own computers -- he's done the same analysis for
MotherJones.com on images of Bush's back taken during the second two
debates. Nelson, a top-ranked senior research scientist at JPL and
past chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American
Astronomical Society, says that by enhancing the contrast and the edge
definition in digital photographs taken of video broadcasts of the
three debates, the object under the jacket can be clearly delineated.Nelson told MotherJones.com, "In the first debate the bulges create
the impression of a letter T with a small feature which appears
similar to a wire under the jacket running upward from the right. In
the second and third debates the jacket has a generally padded shape
across a large part of the entire back which tapers inward toward the
spine in a downward direction. This is consistent with the hypothesis
that a pad was inserted to conceal the T-shaped device seen in the
first debate."The new photos, together with the image from the first debate,
strikingly refute the series of contradictory explanations that have
come from the White House, from the Bush/Cheney campaign, and from the
president himself -- explanations that only addressed the obvious
bulge in his jacket that was noticed at the first debate. Bush and the
White House have not acknowledged -- nor has the mainstream press even
asked about -- the other two debates.The White House position on the issue of the bulge has shifted over
time. When the bulge was first reported by this writer in Salon on
Oct. 8, the White House claimed that it didn't exist -- suggesting
that photos depicting a rectangular bulge had been doctored. When it
was explained that in fact the photos had been taken directly off of
broadcasts of the debate, and that the bulge could be clearly seen in
stop-frames of the Fox News pool broadcast, the White House fell back
on the claim that the bulge was a "pucker" in an ill-tailored suit --
the explanation given to the New York Times, which ran one news report
on the issue, on Oct. 9.While the mainstream media for the most part failed to press the
matter further, Charles Gibson of ABC's Good Morning America show, in
an interview with the president, did ask him for an explanation. Bush
replied that the bulge had been the result of a "poorly tailored
shirt." Gibson didn't press the matter, and didn't ask about the
bulges that were evident during the subsequent debates.A call to the Bush campaign press office on Oct. 29 elicited the same
response: it was a badly tailored shirt.The problem, of course, is that with photos showing that the bulge
was apparent at all three debates, this would mean that the president
either wore the same bad shirt on all three occasions (he changed
jackets and ties), or that he has a whole wardrobe of similarly
ill-fitting shirts.Besides, it would be hard to imagine any shirt, however outsized,
making the prominent bulged-out shapes disclosed by Dr. Nelson's
investigation of the photos.Nelson's work makes one thing abundantly clear: the White House, the
Bush campaign, and the president himself -have been lying about the
bulge in his suit.Nelson's photo analysis raises a number of questions, chief among
which is this: What was the president wearing?Alex Darbut, technical and business development vice president at
Resistance Technology, Inc. of Arden Hills, MN, a company that makes
back-mounted transceivers that link to wireless earpieces hidden in
the ear canal, says he is certain the president was wearing such a
device. Darbut, whose company sells such a device to "the military and
to professionals," including actors and people in communications,
says, "There's no question about it. It's a pretty obvious one --
larger than most because it probably has descrambling capability."If the president were wearing a wire, the second question would be:
was he cheating and getting help with his answers? His behavior during
all three debates left many viewers wondering. During the first
debate, there were those two uncomfortably long pauses after questions
were asked of him, when he just stared out at the camera with a blank
expression, saying nothing and looking for all the world like he was
waiting for an answer to be explained to him. There was also the
peculiar moment when, midway through a 90-second answer period (during
which no interruptions were allowed, and well before his warning light
would have been flashing), the president interrupted himself, blurting
out with an expression of annoyance, "Now let me finish!"In debate number two, there were also odd pauses, and several
occasions when he would appear detached only to leap up and shout out
something -- on one occasion even interrupting the moderator.In debate three, the president was much more reserved, but again
there were the long pauses in his speech, before and even during
answers.Bloggers have been pretty much alone in dogging this story, and some
have suggested that the president may be hiding a medical device --
the prevailing theory is an external atrial defibrillator. But at
least one physician, Dr. Stephen Tarzynski of Pasadena, CA, says most
such devices are worn on the front of the body, closer to the heart.
Another suggestion is an electrical impulse machine that could be
designed to relieve chronic pain. In either case, the public has a
right to know the health condition of the man they are considering as
a candidate for the next four years -- particularly as the vice
president, [censored] Cheney, himself suffering from a serious heart
condition, is far less popular among voters than the head of the
Bush/Cheney ticket.(Remember, the U.S. media have been criticized in the past for
covering up President Franklin Roosevelt's leg braces and President
Kennedy's Addison's disease, as well as President Ronald Reagan's
Alzheimer's in office.)A third big question is why the media -- and the Kerry campaign --
have stayed away from this story, refusing to press the president for
an explanation of the bulges in his three suit jackets. Several calls
to the Kerry campaign press office for a response to this and earlier
articles on the topic went unanswered.Nelson says that for several weeks he has tried to interest the major
media outlets in photos he had worked on from the first debate, to no
avail.He says he offered the photos at no charge to the Los Angeles Times,
which "sat on them for four days" and never returned his phone call.
He claims he also offered them to the New York Times, "and they
promised a story which was ready to go last Thursday when it was
yanked at the last minute by higher ups." Finally, he says he offered
his photos of the first debate to the Washington Post. Assistant
Managing Editor Bob Woodward, he says, called him personally. "He said
it would take too long for him to clear these images with his editors
and he encouraged me to go to Salon.""I'm just really ticked that editors are saying they have to know
what it is before they'll ask the White House about it," says Nelson.
"That's way too high a threshold for pursuing this story."Jeffrey Klein, a former Mother Jones editor, says, "The current fear
factor among American political reporters is greater than anything
I've ever witnessed. Having spoken with more than a dozen journalists,
I've heard a variety of excuses for why they won't or can't pursue
this story. The excuses range from 'Kerry isn't making an issue of
this so how can I?' (Time magazine) to 'The paper has clamped down on
anti-Bush stories. Nothing about the bulge is going to run here before
the election.' (The Wall Street Journal).Klein adds, "Major media outlets are understandably reluctant to
influence an election, but in this instance, they have a certified
government expert willing to go on the record; there's absolutely no
excuse for their silence. All any journalist needs to do is report
this news."Meanwhile, it becomes another form of bias for the media not to do
anything, once the evidence is put out there, as Nelson has done with
these photos.It is no longer possible for the administration and the president
himself to laugh off the bulge in his jacket at all three debates as
bad tailoring, or as an Internet urban legend. Between Nelson's photos
and the onslaught in such comedic venues as The Daily Show and Gary
Trudeau's Doonesbury column, the question has to be asked: What was
the president wearing and why does he wear it?What do you think?
Dave Lindorff, a longtime contributor to Mother Jones, is a veteran
investigative reporter. He is the author of "This Can't Be Happening!
Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy." His work can be
found at thiscantbehappening.net--
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERNPlease excuse the inconvenience allegedly caused by our son
and his handlers. Send us the bill for all the damages, and we can
settle this to your satisfaction, without any need for a public record
of the incident.Most Sincerely, George and Bar