{"id":2728,"date":"2004-10-11T09:59:38","date_gmt":"2004-10-11T14:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2728.html"},"modified":"2004-10-11T09:59:38","modified_gmt":"2004-10-11T14:59:38","slug":"battle-of-the-bulge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/battle-of-the-bulge\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the Bulge"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really didn’t want to write about this. The “bulge” on Bush’s back during the first debate spurred breathless discussion among conspiracy-minded critics, but I wasn’t buying it. Yes, there clearly was something<\/i> there, but I wasn’t even close to considering the notion that it was some kind of device that would allow Bush to receive answers to questions from his aides, as the rumor argued. I assumed, probably incorrectly, that the bulge was some kind of wireless microphone accessory. <\/p>\n

But my willingness to ignore the story turned to sudden curiosity when Bush campaign staffers tried to explain this away.<\/p>\n

Salon got the ball rolling on Friday with a lengthy treatment<\/a>, which apparently sparked some interest in the nation’s major papers. Over the weekend, all three of the major dailies — Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times — ran items<\/a> about the strange bulge and BC04’s reaction to questions over its purpose. Unfortunately, aides’ explanations made this seemingly-silly story far more interesting.<\/p>\n

First, here’s a picture, as published by the New York Times, of the mysterious protuberance:<\/p>\n

\"bulge\"\/<\/p>\n

Responding to questions about the box, however, the campaign’s answers have ranged from silly, to unhelpful, to nonsensical. If the campaign did have a reasonable explanation, I’d have let this go and gladly blown off the controversy. Instead, the campaign has piqued my interest with their unconvincing spin and moved the story from “tin hat” territory to a legitimate question.
\n
\nFirst, there was the “deny everything” strategy.<\/p>\n

The White House refused to provide an on-the-record comment, saying that it would dignify a baseless issue, and referred questions to the Bush-Cheney campaign.<\/p>\n

“It is preposterous,” campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. He declined to elaborate or to suggest what could have produced the unusual photo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an initial response, that’s fine. If it’s a silly question, don’t answer it. Fine. But with stories running in all of the major dailies, and a photo that clearly shows something on the president’s back, they needed a better answer. Which led to:<\/p>\n

Bush’s aides tried to laugh off the controversy, with one official joking about “little green men on the grassy knoll.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still not bad as a defense mechanism, but these reporters saw the picture. They know something was there and they were starting to wonder what it was.<\/p>\n

“There was nothing under his suit jacket,” said Nicolle Devenish, a campaign spokeswoman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, this won’t do. The picture clearly shows a box with something that appears to be a chord coming out of it. Devenish added:<\/p>\n

“It was most likely a rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve worn plenty of suits and had plenty of wrinkles, but I’ve never seen a suit mistakenly show a box that wasn’t there.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was part of a bullet-proof vest?<\/p>\n

Nor was the bulge from a bulletproof vest, according to campaign and White House officials; they said Mr. Bush was not wearing one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have a hunch this story won’t pick up steam, unless some other damning detail comes to light. But, I have to admit, the Bush campaign’s answers raise more questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really didn’t want to write about this. The “bulge” on Bush’s back during the first debate spurred breathless discussion among conspiracy-minded critics, but I wasn’t buying it. Yes, there clearly was something there, but I wasn’t even close to considering the notion that it was some kind of device that would allow Bush to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}