From TimesWatch ~ Elisabeth Bumiller, Left-Wing Conspiracy-Monger

Times Watch ^ | October 18, 2004

[Zacs Mom]

Elisabeth Bumiller, Left-Wing Conspiracy-Monger

White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller again treats a conspiracy theory as actual news. Monday marks her second piece on the "bulge," previously a subject of debate only on the far-left side of the Internet.

She writes in her "White House Letter": "In these closing weeks of the presidential campaign, the talk at an edgy White House is of polls, turnout, swing voters and polls. There are also two story lines from the presidential debates that to the exasperation of President Bush's advisers won't go away: the bubble and the bulge. The bulge -- the strange rectangular box visible between the president's shoulder blades in the first debate -- has set off so much frenzied speculation on the Internet that it has become what literary critics call an objective correlative, or an object that evokes large emotions and ideas."

[Zacs Mom]

Shortly after the 1st debate, conspiracy advocates used the internet to put forth the theory that a 'mysterious' bulge on GWB's back could be seen in photos taken at the debate and that that bulge could have been some kind of a transmitter that enabled W to receive radio transmitted answers from Karl Rove.

This asinine theory quickly grew legs and, of course, made it's way into MSM were it now appears (at least at the NYT) to have become a 'legitimate' inquiry.

If the issue of the "bulge" really is a 'legitimate' one, I need some clarification about exactly what is in question in the "Battle Of The Bulge" ....

I should probably write Ms. Bumiller or the NYT to ask:

"With regard to the 'Battle Over Bulge', is just the bulge on Bush's back in question or
can speculation about the identical one on Kerry's back be included?"

[wideawake]

it has become what literary critics call an objective correlative, or an object that evokes large emotions and ideas."

That's not what "objective correlative" means. An objective correlative, as described by T.S. Eliot, is an experience of something concrete which triggers emotional memories or associations.

For example, one could walk down a street randomly and hear a child's cry, see an overcast sky and and smell air musty just before a spring rain and immediately be reminded of the cloudy, rainy spring day thirty years ago when one lost his dog and ran crying through the street looking for it - and feel again in one's gut the sense of loss and sadness.

What emotional memories and associations does an alleged bulge in the back of a man's suit evoke?

[Freemyland]

"For example, one could walk down a street randomly and hear a child's cry, see an overcast sky and and smell air musty just before a spring rain and immediately be reminded of the cloudy, rainy spring day thirty years ago when one lost his dog and ran crying through the street looking for it - and feel again in one's gut the sense of loss and sadness."

That is so true. I was at a real low point in my career a little while back. I hated where I was working, and I hated going in every morning. Luckily, after only 4 months there, I landed my current position, which I love. Anyway, on the occasions when I have to go downtown in the mornings, taking the same route I took to my previous job, I get that same feeling of dread I used to get when I had to go there every morning.

[Question_Assumptions]

I highly recommend Elisabeth Bumiller's book May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons : A Journey Among the Women of India. The chapter that compares sex-selective abortions and infanticide is excellent and the cognitive dissonance that she displays when she claims that nobody would ever compare sex-selective infanticide with abortion, after spending an entire chapter doing exactly that, is simply stunning. This is a woman who, when given a choice between reality and ideology, clearly choose ideology, no matter how silly it makes her look.