Bush Wired? OMG: He's a Terminator Robot from the Future!

Published on October 13, 2004 By blogic In Politics

There's a rumor that's percolated to late night television and major papers that Bush is wearing a wire during the debates. While there's obviously something going on there, I don't think Bush is getting his lines read to him. For one thing, would he have performed so badly in the first debate if some debate expert were feeding Bush lines? The simplest answer is that Bush is wearing a bulletproof vest -- the only problem with that is the White House denies it. Maybe the Secret Service doesn't want people to know. It is the Secret Service, and they seem to be damn secretive about everything, even when it doesn't make any sense.

Actual conversation:

BLOGIC: What's the color of the sky?
SECRET SERVICE: That's on a need to know basis only, and you don't need to know.

Okay, not actually.

So what can we get out of this development? Well, for one thing, we now know the Drudge Report is biased. As of this morning, he still hadn't covered it. He was all over the Kerry pen scandal -- hell, he was like half half the coverage of it. People around the web were kinda chiding Drudge for being this open about his slant, so is he finally covering it now? Let me know if he is.

But honestly, the more important thing is even if Bush were getting his lines wired to him, so what? Presidents read teleprompters (or however the hell that's capitalized -- "tELepROMtERs") for all their major speeches, and we're all fine with that. And it's not as if presidents write their speeches. You want a good coat, you go to a tailor; you want a good speech, you go to a writer. Honestly, I'd be scared if my president's defining skill were his writing. "Sure, America and the world are falling apart, but my "OvalBloggist" blog is going great." If Bush were using a wire, I would think Bush deserves some credit for realizing that he should look to the experts for responding to his opponents attacks. In a real crisis, Bush would put together a team, so why can't he do that in the debates?

Which really gets to the point: Why do we even care about the debates? Why do we force our candidates to jump through this meaningless hoop? The skills tested during the debates have nothing to do with being a good president. When you're running the country, you have access to the Best and the Brightest, so why focus on whether the president himself is some kind of genious? It matters a hell of a lot more whether the president is able to understand the cares of the people who elected him, and whether he's able to bring a team together. Two examples of effective presidents who weren't rocket scientists: Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. On the other hand, Jimmy Carter, who's apparently very intelligent, wasn't so great in office.

The debates are stupid. The only way I can make sense out of them is to think they're testing the ability of a candidate to deal with a stressful situation. Well, fine, but then give them the tools they'd have if they were president. Let George Bush listen to a wire, and have someone around to keep John Kerry more on-message. And can someone please teach both of them better body language? Bush has his crazy facial tics, and Kerry's smile just scares me.

Comments

Grim Xiozan

on Oct 13, 2004

What about a wireless microphone?

Though in reality should I care because he did not benefit from it if he did wear one.

- Grim X

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