[FedCom] The hump on Bush's back

Fri Oct 15 00:24:10 EDT 2004

"kool-aid kool-aid, tastes great, wish we had some, can't wait"


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Emery" <die at dieconsulting.com>
To: "Richard Crisp" <rdcrisp at earthlink.net>; "Discussion of Federal 
Government Communications" <fedcom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [FedCom] The hump on Bush's back


> 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
>
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