[FedCom] The hump on Bush's back

[Dave Emery]

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 08:09:12PM -0700, Richard Crisp wrote:
> but why use an off the shelf bulky radio if that's in fact what it is and 
> in a very visible place, particularly after it was already brought up as 
> being controversial before this debate? Don't you think he'd have access to 
> "spookier" devices? Why not wear it in the armpit like a gun in a shoulder 
> holster?

	It might not have been seen as contraversial (or visible) until
the first debate and the original story.   And after that they had only
a very few days to replace it with something else for the next debates
and if one assumes that Dubya has come to rely on it for whatever it
does for him it might well have been a choice between substituting
something that might not work and annoy him at a critical moment or use
the familiar setup for a mission critical situation and take the risk
that it might be noticed again.

	And this is critical - if a replacement annoyed or bothered him
or made his motions awkward it might actually do more damage to locate
it  somewhere else he wasn't used to than put it back in the familiar
location proven over time to work for him.

	Besides there is a kind of ballsy risk equation here... if it
helps him aviod losing the election in the debate and it has been
spotted and documented during the first one anyway, it might make more
sense to  continue to use it and hope that you can stonewall and
bullsh*t your way out of the situation for three weeks than try
something else or using nothing at all and make it clear that you have
something to hide by virtue of having the bulge disappear after the
press reports about it.

	As I see it, if the press can produce proof Rove or Karen was
coaching him his goose is cooked and nothing else matters, and if they
can't or suppress it because of management political pressure, then
using the technology to the fullest and praying he is not effectively
called on it is his best gambit - presuming it really does help him
perform better.

> I can understand why the partisans out there would want to believe this 
> fellow they have such great disdain for would resort to a cue device, but 
> wearing it in such a visible position doesn't make any sense to me. POTUS 
> has access to far more sophisticated devices by the nature of his position. 
> After the Salon story, why would he do it again assuming they ever did it 
> to begin with?

	As for why they didn't use something more exotic and high tech,
I think I can explain this.   Obviously use of something of this ilk is
a closely guarded political secret.   And obviously the more people who
are involved in the project, the more likely the explosive story will
leak.

	So it is very likely that only a trusted few aides and techy
types were involved in procuring, testing and operating the system.  
And probably only limited funds were available for the project without
compromising it. So use of more or less off the shelf IFB technology
rather than developing such specially for the project would be far less
likely to attract attention or result in a devasting leak - and be
something that the people involved could manage especically compared to
developing exotic personal low profile electronic systems (they were,
after all, probably mostly WH political flacks - not EEs).

	Thus using the resources of the available SCS NSA/CIA
specialists in such things would be too risky (and might be also seen as
using those resources for political purposes as opposed to national
security ones) , and even contracting with a vendor for such a special
might well have been seen as dangerous (and coming up with the
untraceable funds for it not so easy either).

	And I suspect that such a political project would have to be 
handled out of channels within the WCHA support organization - again to
protect security and aviod whistleblowing.   This also limits the
techology possiblities that could be used.

	So it does not surprise me in the least that even the WH
political office at the highest level lacks the resources to create a
truly covert high tech system (that is also reliable and works right) or
for that matter to change to something else in a hurry either.

	And presuming the signals are secure relative to the expected
threat, they may well have bet that even if people have their
suspicions, absent audio recordings of the system in use it will remain
a mystery long enough to win the election....

> I had heard that he had postponed a recent physical exam until after the 
> election. Maybe he has developed a heart condition and they are wanting to 
> keep it quiet until after the election and he's just wearing a heart 
> monitoring device? There would be little demand for such a medical device 
> to be micro-miniature so it would  make sense that they'd be using a 
> standard commercial product.
	
	This is certainly possible.  But if true, supressing the
information until after an election is dirty politics - perhaps not as
dirty as cheating in a debate, but the public certainly has a right to
know if the President has a serious enough health problem to require
continuous monitoring or special on the body treatment hardware (such as
insulin injectors,  neurostimulators or cardiac defibrillators).   Some
folks might quite justifyably change their vote if they think the
President is seriously ill and especially so if he is concealing it.

	But I do have to note that I don't think he routinely wears the
thing during stump appearances (I have seen many) - I have seen him
wearing it, but not routinely.   A medical condition would seem to imply
something he always had on him if he needs to wear it during his most
critical 90 minutes in office.


> The other explanation just doesn't pass Occam's Razor test best I can tell. 
> It might be correct, but I think there's a simpler explanation in it being 
> a medical device such as a  heart monitor or a neurostimulator.

	Trying for the simplest explanation that involves the fewest
assumptions in this case is not obvious to me...

	Use of an IFB type system (available COTS technology or special)
for either security or covert prompting or both means assuming that the
WH would take the risk in order to have the benefits.  Use for cheating
in a debate is politically explosive, use for appearing smarter and more
with it than you are is in routine public events is a little less so.
Use for security raises questions about whether use for other purposes
is something that has NEVER happened...

	Use of a medical device in public presumes that this is
necessary (relatively rare for basicly healthy people as he was reported
to be up to a year or so ago) and the WH would take the risk of doing so
without public disclosure of the underlying condition (politically
dangerous) or treatment.

	Not obvious to me which is the furthest stretch...

-- 
   Dave Emery N1PRE,  die at dieconsulting.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493