Remember the bulge on Bush's back? It's back. At least, the controversy has returned to some degree, due to David Lindorff's piece.
David Okrent, an editor at the New York Times, has corresponded on the topic with Chris Shaw of
BushWired. (The same correspondence can be found at
Okrent's site.
Okrent denies the unverified report that the NYT killed the story because Karl Rove placed a call to the paper:
If this is true, it's because "Bushwired" has much better sources than I do. I have never heard this, nor do I believe it.
Shaw's response to this deserves a fairly lengthy quotation:
In late October 2004, after the Times' report was "spiked", I received several reports of the incident at Bush Wired. The reports ranged from simple information on the "spiked" story, to a laundry list of complaints against the Times' editors. One report mentioned a "near mutiny" in the Times newsroom and that people at the Times were "aghast" over the Bulge story's untimely death. All reports correctly identified both the authors of the story and the date the story was killed, several weeks before this information was otherwise made public. As these reports turned out to be correct, I feel these sources are somewhat credible. Because of the timing and accuracy of these sources, I can only ASSUME that they are within the Times itself. I promised NOT to reprint or post the original e-mails from these sources, and I will keep my word. Additionally, I have not heard anything more from these sources since early November.
Three of these reports mentioned that Karl Rove called the Times, and subsequently the story was killed. I have no way to independently verify this information, but I decided to simply post what I was told, based on the previous accuracy of the sources.
As for David Lindorff's suggestion that the bulge story, if properly publicized, could have changed the course of the election: Shaw tosses this idea into the "What if?" category, but I tend to think that greater publicity could have helped Kerry's chances. Indeed, that was pretty much the main reason why I spent so much time on the topic in the run-up to the election.
Are there any new bulge reports? No, not as such. But I have heard a fairly consistent rumor, which my readers may help identify.
Not many days after the disaster of September 11, 2001, Bush delivered a fine speech to the nation during a service at the National Cathedral. A number of people tell me that they heard a "pre-echo" of another voice cuing Bush's lines before he spoke them.
Yeah, I know: There are possible "innocent" technical explantions for such a phenomenon, if it existed. We can't judge if we don't have a videotape record to study.
And thus I ask the readers: Do
you have a tape of the that event? Do you know anyone who does?