Man the barricades, it’s Bush again=The Hill.com=
Now it can be told: That mysterious bulge on President Bush’s back during the first presidential debate was not an electronic device feeding him answers, but a strap holding his bulletproof vest in place….
But sources in the Secret Service told The Hill that Bush was wearing a bulletproof vest, as he does most of the time when appearing in public. The president�s handlers did not want to admit as much during the campaign, for fear of disclosing information related to his personal security while he was on the campaign trail.
The suspicion that Bush was, indeed, wearing something under his coat was given further credence by Dr. Robert M. Nelson, a senior research scientist for NASA and Caltech�s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis, who conducted tests while working at home on his own computers.
We only note that Bush did, in fact, lie about what it was when asked.
There comes a point where you have to wonder whether or not you’ve lost all ability to be rational about a subject.
When you think it’s worth calling someone a liar for not revealing aspects of their personal safety, that’s one sign that you might have reached that point.
Justtry imagining someone else, say, Bill Clinton, denying that he wears a bullet proof vest only to have it–gasp!– revealed that he does, indeed, wear one. Now imagine Jerry Fallwell using this as “Yet another example of Bill Clinton lying to the American public.”
Now imagine NOT thinking that Fallwell would be a fool to do this.
Do you think that anybody would have given the President of the United States a hard time if he had said outright, “It’s a bulletproof vest”? If anything, he gains points for it– it explains his discomfort during the debates, for one thing. Vests are heavy, and standing upright under hot lights for 90 minutes wearing one is not fun.
Of course, it might beg the question of why he thinks he has to wear one– and why Kerry isn’t.
Oh, one other reason occurs to me– then Bush has to explain why he’s wearing body armor, and soldiers in Iraq aren’t.
You assume that Kerry is so stupid that he went out in public without a vest. I didn’t support the guy but I doubt he was that dumb. maybe his fit better.
I don’t know about ALL soldiers in Iraq but I know that a few I have spoken to have some kind of body protection since they brought it up as one of the main reasons casulaties have been so light compared to previous wars.
My understanding from later reports wass not that there’s NO body armor, it’s that it is not the latest and greatest.
It doesn’t change the spin that went around – or the soundbite like Glenn’s that would have been generated.
Yeah, but then Glenn’s not really interested in being fair. His weblog, and he’s pushing his view.