Wired

During the first Presidential debate, Mr. Bush's weird outburst («Let me finish!») and odd eye movements have led to speculations that he was wired. A picture of his back showing a very noticeable rectangular bulge under his jacket has been circulating on the Internet, with no convincing explanations given by his Administration.

Now I don't know and I don't care whether or not Mr. Bush received outside help during the debate. What I notice though, in reading the comments on every site that talks about this issue, is this seemingly concerted effort to shut down any discussion about the matter.

Why can't we talk about this? It's not like the Republican campaign has been a paragon of honesty and fairplay. Why would the idea of them cheating be so unthinkable? On the contrary, considering Mr. Bush's well known verbal handicap, it would be remiss of his handlers not to find a way to help him out. One frequent argument presented to prove that he wasn't wired was that, if he had been, he would have been more articulate and won the debate. Of course, that's nonsense. All the help in the world is useless when the «helpee» is beyond help.

What is the purpose of the debates anyway? If it's a forum for the candidates to explain their positions, why can't they show up with fact sheets, diagrams and statistics to prove their points? If it's an opportunity for the candidates to demonstrate their debating skills, what have Toastmasters' skills got to do with good governance? In the end, I think the debates are just another form of beauty pageants. The candidates are judged on how «presidential» they look, the colour of their ties, their relative heights, how good they are at memorizing and reciting their policy powerpoint bullets, etc... And then the obligatory hugs from the beaming spouses. Urgh!

Somehow, this doesn't look like a very efficient way to choose the leader of the richest and most powerful country in the world.