Reuters has published a quicky bit about how blogs have become a real force in politics, opinion, and commentary:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. presidential campaign between George W. Bush and John Kerry (news – web sites) has prompted a frenzy of gossip and conspiracy theories among Internet bloggers, hybrid online sites that blend news, gossip and opinion.
In particular, I like how the debunking of the CBS memo is attributed to bloggers who aggressively attacked the authenticity of them. Initially, I was very skeptical of the criticism being levelled at the article, but in this case, the skepticism was valid, the memo was indeed a fake.
The current bruhaha is about George Bush’s ‘bulge’ that showed up in one of the debate pictures. It looks as if GW is wearing something under his jacket, and people are speculating wildly that this was a ‘wire’, and he was being prompted off-stage by Karl Rove. Personally, I think this is pushing it, but who knows how this will pan out.
Someone, i think on the SRC list, postulated that it may well be a wire, but just a Secret Service thing so he can be notified immediately if there is a threat.
Or at least that makes a good excuse for wearing it…
Pfeh! If there’s a threat serious enough to interrupt him, he’ll be notified by 5 or 6 burly men suddenly appearing and throwing him off the stage.
Catya sez:
Someone, i think on the SRC list, postulated that it may well be a wire, but just a Secret Service thing so he can be notified immediately if there is a threat.
If that were in fact the case, then the Bushies would have simply said “This is a requirement from the secret service, it is used only for emergencies.”
In fact, the response has been, as quotes from the article above:
“It’s a laughable, left-wing conspiracy theory,” said Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel.
So if it were in fact something real, one would assume they would have said so, and not dismissed it as ‘laughable’.