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We already know that the U.S. President doesn't exactly play fair (unloading Harken Energy stock on inside information, artificially deflating the price of baseball stadium land, the 2000 election) so allegations that he has an ear-canal audioprompter telling him what to say should come as no surprise. The website Is Bush Wired? and Dave Lindorff's pieces for Salon and Counterpunch make a convincing case that not only does the little man use the prompter in speeches, but also answering tricky questions in press conferences and even to help him perform (poorly) in his first debate with John Kerry. TV stills have more than once caught the outline of a squarish lump on his back, under his suit coat, and some cable cameras have accidently picked up audio feeds from his unseen handlers. It would be great if this became a campaign issue but it's doubtful given how much the press loves him. If he gets a second term (no! no!) we will somehow have to come to terms with the fact that he's our first Bionic President.
UPDATE: Unbelievably, the New York Times covers this (" The Mystery of the Bulge in the Jacket"). I guess once Salon was on board, it became OK. And the reporter is Elizabeth Bumiller, who generally writes love letters to Bush.
UPDATE 2: Dave says George Stephanopolous mentioned it on the Sunday talk shows but just treated it as a joke. As the Daily Howler would say, "once again your media is clowning."
UPDATE 3: This Bush interpreter has heard the President speak perfectly without notes on subjects of great complexity, leading the interpreter to believe he's wired. But what works in a speech context could be a liability in the debate context--listening to two people at once is hard.
From E. Worthy, Early 21st Century Art (New York: Kramer Publishing 2035):
"The death of so-called site specific art came in 2004, at a talked-about show most people never saw. The concept was that artists would 'respond' to Eero Saarinen's somewhat overwhelming 1962 terminal building at Kennedy Airport (considered high Modernist kitsch by some architects), an activity with roughly the same significance as small lice-eating birds 'responding' to a rhinoceros. It consisted of such obvious and expected gestures as running political slogans on the defunct terminal's arrivals and departures board, piping sound art through the intercom, and so forth. Once admitted to this vast playground from their usual physically constraining warrens in Chelsea and Williamsburg, and perhaps because the art was so familiar as not to hold anyone's attention, the artists went berserk at an opening night party and trashed the terminal."New York Times report
Installation shots of a Vanity Fair party two nights before "amok night"--thanks to Bill for the pics and timeline