Speak Forcefully

Promptergate: Bush Wears Wire During Debate?

At first it sounds incredible, but then... a lot of incredible things turn out to be true.

The notion that Bush was wearing a wire to help him during the debate with Kerry seems more than a little astonishing, especially considering the fact that Bush has a degree in History from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard. Regardless, it's an interesting story.

For a web site devoted to this issue, see here.

For a recording of the mid-debate slip that blew this tale open, click here.

For video of the earlier occasion when news mics accidentally picked up a "phantom voice" feeding Bush his lines, click here. Some have argued that this "pre-echo", but Bush and his prompter sometimes use slightly different wording.

An EXCELLENT jumping off point for this story - check out Cannon Fire's blog. A very sharp guy.

UPDATE 10-12-2004

A few of my own comments here - and also, sadly, why none of this probably matters - here.

Cannon Fire has a piece posted that illustrates how the Karl Rovian's out that there might be attempting to utilize disinformation tactics about the Prompter Wire that Bush was wearing during the debates.

The strategy is pretty simple and it's been used for years: Plant a fake story first that appears to support the Promptergate issue with some "inside information", in this case a "Republican Operative named Scot Zale... who works in the Knoxville Bush/Cheney office" and then involve The Knoxville Times - a rather fake-ish looking paper that operates out of Australia (making the hoax even more obvious) - to follow up with the blogger leading the story for more commentary. It was pre-planned, organized and executed about as well as the war in Iraq.

In other words - discredit the truth by using truthful lies to act as a diversion from the real story. It's great triangulation and usually works fine with the unthinking regular media who just re-vomit what they're told, but bloggers are more... skeptical and didn't fall for it.

Like SCO and Microsoft, Karl Rove doesn't seem to fully comprehend the Groklaw Effect.


Second Update 10-12-2004

Do all Republicans require assistance of some sort during debates? Is this just the norm now?

" The senator refused to allow a member of the Kentucky media to be present at the RNC studio to monitor whether Bunning was receiving assistance with his answers, according to Mongiardo campaign manager Kim Geveden and WKYT news director Jim Ogle. And Bunning refused to engage reporters via satellite in a previously agreed upon post-debate news conference, insisting instead that his 15 minutes of answering questions occur by telephone, without accompanying video footage."

posted by majqa @ 11:58 PM