Roger Whittaker

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Bush earpiece (5)

Saturday 23rd October 2004

Today's Guardian has a piece on the presidential debates by Charlie Brooker (as a piece of TV criticism).

Favourite quotes:

The internet's a-buzz with speculation that Bush has been wearing a wire, receiving help from some off-stage lackey. Screen grabs appearing to show a mysterious bulge in the centre of his back are being traded like Top Trumps. Prior to seeing the debate footage, I regarded this with healthy scepticism: the whole "wire" scandal was just wishful thinking on behalf of some amateur Michael Moores, I figured. And then I watched the footage.

Quite frankly, the man's either wired or mad. If it's the former, he should be flung out of office: tarred, feathered and kicked in the nuts. And if it's the latter, his behaviour goes beyond strange, and heads toward terrifying. He looks like he's listening to something we can't hear. He blinks, he mumbles, he lets a sentence trail off, starts a new one, then reverts back to whatever he was saying in the first place. Each time he recalls a statistic (either from memory or the voice in his head), he flashes us a dumb little smile, like a toddler proudly showing off its first bowel movement.

He ends (and I don't suppose this could be printed in any kind of newspaper in the United States, even tongue in cheek):

John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?