News - ‘Bulgegate’ exposed

Most Americans laughed off as a conspiracy theory the mysterious bulge jutting from President Bush’s suit during the first presidential debate last fall. But some folks are still taking the bulge very seriously. Reporter Dave Lindorff puts a new twist on the old lump in “The Emperor’s New Hump,” published in the most recent issue of Extra!, the magazine for media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

In the article, Lindorff gives a behind-the-scenes account of what happened after three New York Times reporters wrote a story about the possibility that the bulge was an electronic cueing device Bush used to cheat during the debate. The story never made it to print; senior editors killed it last-minute.

The unpublished story describes how photo enhancement by a veteran NASA scientist revealed the bulge as a T-shaped object resembling the device. The Times chose not to run the story because of nearness of the election, Lindorff reports. The story later appeared in the online magazine Salon.

Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent later confirmed in his blog that the “paper of record” killed the story. Okrent quotes Executive Editor Bill Keller as saying the story never rose above speculation.

But he also quotes Times reporter Andrew Revkin as saying the NASA scientist “decided to say very publicly that, without reservation, he was convinced there was something under a president’s jacket when the White House said there was nothing.”

Lindorff’s story is online at www.fair.org/index.php?page=2012.??