Conspiracy theory update, OR, The Mystery of Bush's Brain

Just what was the mysterious bulge on Bush's back during the first debate? Speculation began in the blogosphere, then erupted into mainstream press. Now, Salon.com says that a 'technical expert' says it looks to him like a sort of transmitter. What's more, video has surfaced from a much earlier Bush speech in which a CNN broadcast seems to have picked up the voice of someone saying Bush's words moments before Bush himself spoke them. Mmmm....

But why would the President need a transmitter--and why didn't it help him do better during the debate? Well, it could be because he is suffering from PRE-SENILE DEMENTIA. As evidence, look at this comparison of his debate performances in the Texas governor's race and the first presidential debate.

Some sort of mental breakdown might also explain why Bush insisted that Dick Cheney be with him when he met with the 9/11 commission, and why Bush's handlers take such extreme steps to isolate him from reporters, protestors, or anyone wearing a John Kerry button. And of course news of the President's condition cannot be allowed to leak out before the election, so his annual physical exam had to be cancelled.

Fake Kerry quotes at FOX and NY Times

A flurry of reports about supposed Kerry statements that it turns out were either just made up or heard second or third hand and never checked.

First, Josh Marshall catches a story on FOX News that contains quotes from Kerry like "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" Did Kerry really say things like that? Nope--the quotes were made up as a joke by the FOX reporter covering the Kerry campaign, and 'accidentally' posted on the FOX News website before being retracted. What will happen to the reporter--will he be fired or maybe reassigned to some other beat? FOX isn't saying.

Second, scroll down to the Updates on today's Daily Howler, where Maureen Dowd and her colleagues at the NY Times are taken to task for repeatedly using a quote from Kerry--"Who among us does not like NASCAR"--that Kerry never said. The original post from the Howler is overly long and frenzied, but contains more details about how Dowd got the quote. Though the NYT has probably known for some time that the quote is false, they have never apologized or issued a retraction.

What does 'Lumpenlogocracy' mean?

logocrats = people who gain their authority from use of words and other symbols (i.e. professional groups such as scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, college professors)

lumpen = prefix in social theory denoting the part of the group that is lowest and least powerful; most common usage is "lumpenproletariat": "The lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat. Used originally in Marxist theory to describe those members of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked class consciousness." (according to the dictionary)

lumpen-logocrats = unemployed or insecurely employed people with higher degrees, stereotypically people with Ph.D's who drive cabs or wait tables for a living...or perhaps Ph.D's who cannot find tenure-track jobs and have to cobble together a living from teaching classes here and there (usage from sociologist Charles Derber and his colleagues)

lumpenlogocracy = perhaps an oxymoron, since "-cracy" usually refers to who rules in a society (e.g., democracy, plutocracy, autocracy), and thus anyone who is "lumpen" can't really be "-cracy"...on the other hand, it is a kind of daring statement that the lowest professionals are trying to assert their authority

[Note: this post was created on 10-18-2005 as a linkable container for information removed from the web log's sidebar when the blog roll was added.]

Best description of the debate (so far)

From Tom Shales's critique in the Washington Post:

One longtime political observer -- among the friends canvassed by this critic -- was more irreverent about the debate and how the two debaters came off: "It was Andy Griffith meets Barney Fife," he said, with Kerry in the Griffith role -- solid, sanguine, sensible -- and Bush as the nervous Fife.

It's also amusing to note from this article that good old Dan Rather refuses to describe the 'debate' as a debate--instead, he refers to it always as a 'joint appearance.' Good for you, Mr. Rather. Um, too bad about those documents, huh?

Kudos (Koodohs? Kudoughs? Whatever) to Peter Jennings and ABC, too. I watched their debate coverage last night and was mightily pleased that they did not interview any of the spinmeisters fogging up the lenses and microphones of other organizations in 'spin alley.'

Post Debate

In the papers this morning, most accounts of the debate give Kerry the win. A friend of mine with a staunchly Republican family, however, tells me that last night she phoned her parents and siblings to get their impressions, and all of them thought Bush had 'stuck to his guns' and won hands down. So maybe Bush's consistency played well with his base. The LA Times says (registration required), on the other hand, that some undecided voters in Allentown, PA, were won over by Kerry during the debate, and that

Those in the crowd laughed several times when Bush smirked or stammered, and several undecided voters said afterward that they found Kerry more articulate and decisive.

To me, Bush seemed irritable and uncomfortable. And he really said only two things for every question: 'Criticizing my policies sends the wrong message to the troops,' and 'Being President is hard.'

Did anyone else notice that Bush did not answer Lehrer's question whether Bush really believed that electing Kerry would make a terrorist attack on the US more likely? Bush said, to paraphrase, 'I don't believe that will happen, because Kerry won't be elected.'