George W. Bush, who is allegedly on a "charm offensive" across Europe, dropped the charm and was simply offensive at his NATO press conference when he once again relied on a hidden earpiece to feed him canned soundbite answers to reporters' questions.

As NASA scientist Robert Nelson proved last fall, George W. Bush relied on a wireless earpiece in all three of his debates with John Kerry during the 2004 campaign. While bloggers (including Democrats.com, IsBushWired.com, MysteryBulge, Cryptome, and BushBulge.com) have accumulated overwhelming evidence that Bush was wired, the mainstream media has consistently refused to report on any of this evidence.

Investigative reporter David Lindorff has written extensively on Bush's earpiece in Salon.com, MotherJones.com, and Counterpunch.org. On February 3, Lindorff broke new ground with an expose for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (fair.org) reporting that the NY Times had a solid story ready for publication a week before Election Day - but editors killed the story.

Times science writer William Broad, as well as reporters Andrew Revkin and John Schwartz, got to work on the story, according to Nelson, and produced a story that he says they assured him was scheduled to run the week of October 25. "It got pushed back because of the explosives story," he says, first to Wednesday, and then to Thursday, October 28. That would still have been five days ahead of Election Day...

But on October 28, the article was not in the paper. After learning from the reporters working on the story that their article had been killed the night before by senior editors, Nelson eventually sent his photographic evidence of presidential cheating to Salon magazine, which ran the photos as the magazine’s lead item on October 29. That same day, Nelson received the following email from the Times’ Schwartz:

Congratulations on getting the story into Salon. It’s already all over the Web in every blog I’ve seen this morning. I’m sorry to have been a source of disappointment and frustration to you, but I’m very happy to see your story getting out there.
Best wishes,
John

After the Times killed its story, the Washington Post quickly followed suit:

Nelson says that the same day he learned that his story had been killed at the Times, October 28, he received a phone call from Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, famous for his investigative reports on Watergate. "Woodward said he’d heard the Times had killed the story and asked me if I could send the photos to him," says Nelson.

The JPL scientist did so immediately, via email, noting that he had also been in touch with Salon magazine. He says Woodward then sent his photographs over to a photo analyst at the paper to check them for authenticity, which Nelson says was confirmed.

A day later, realizing time was getting short, Nelson called Woodward back. Recalls Nelson: "He told me, 'Look, I’m going to have to go through a lot of hoops to get this story published. You’re already talking to Salon. Why don’t you work with them?'" (Several emails to Woodward asking him about Nelson's account have gone unanswered.)

At that point Nelson, despairing of getting the pictures in a major publication, went with the online magazine Salon. This reporter subsequently asked Nelson to do a similar photo analysis of digital images of Bush’s back taken from the tapes of the second and third presidential debates. The resulting photos, which also clearly show the cueing device and magnetic loop harness under his jacket on both occasions, were posted, together with Nelson’s images from the first debate, on the news website of Mother Jones magazine (10/30/04).

The key evidence presented by Robert Nelson was his enhanced photos of the bulge in Bush's back, which was attached to a wire that ran along Bush's shoulder blade towards his wired ear. The photos which revealed Bush's bulge were partly an accident - Bush's debate lawyers had insisted on a rule preventing candidates from being photographed from behind. But when this rule leaked to the public, the networks decided to defy the rule. In addition, some key photos were taken while Bush lingered to shake hands on stage.

At today's NATO press conference, there was little chance for another "camera malfunction." Bush walked quickly in and out of the press conference, and all three cable networks relied on a single camera that was placed in front of Bush. Bush was also careful to stand square to the podium, never turning his shoulder to provide a revealing side shot.

But Bush's obvious reliance on his earpiece could be easily detected from the manner in which he delivered his answers.

There are several speaking tics that expose Bush when he is using his earpiece. First, he pauses between sentences for an extra beat, which buys him time to hear the answer he is being fed. Second, when a particular answer is different from his own train of thought, his gaze drops down as he concentrates extra hard on the voice within his ear. Third, he sometimes mumbles and speaks gibberish when his brain and tongue get out of synch. Finally his answers ramble on, going from one stray thought to another, as he "filibusters" to consume all available time.

These "delivery" issues have received less attention from bloggers than the photographic evidence. But they deserve far more attention now, because the White House is obviously determined to prevent cameras from revealing any more bulges.

Thanks to TIVO and video blogging, Bush's rare public appearances can now be shared over the Internet and put under close "linguistic" scrutiny. James Poling was shocked when he caught Bush in the act on 12/20/04:

This is very strange. What the hell is wrong with President Bush, and I don't mean in the "oh my God you lied and invaded a country way" I mean in, I think there's really something either mentally or physically wrong with him.

Watch this video! [Link to C-SPAN clip that no longer exists but archived at CrooksandLiars.com.] Go to 16:47 in the press conference and keep your eye on Bush. He is in the middle of speaking to the press and he suddenly drops his head and mumbles something and then immediately continues speaking. It is seriously one of the oddest things I've ever seen.

Can anyone tell what he says? What the hell was that?

Does he have tourettes? Is he talking into his tie? Did his shoe fall off? Seriously, I have never seen anything like this.

I challenge the blogosphere to look for similar telltale video moments - as well as knowledgable linguistic experts - to prove that Bush relies on his earpiece for nearly every public event.