Bulgegate Revisited

The story is a little old now but still well worth noting. The January/February issue of Extra!, the journal of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), contains an article about Bush's bulge, the one in the back of his jacket observed during the first presidential debate with John Kerry.

It runs down the attempts by NASA scientist Robert Nelson to get press attention to his enhanced photography (which clearly shows something under Shrub's jacket) and the unwillingness of the mainstream media to treat it seriously. What was most interesting to me, and which I hadn't heard before, is that after originally asserting through a source that Dr. Nelson's information got tossed on the "nutpile," the New York Times admitted through its ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, that in fact reporters had worked the story. But, he said, quoting executive editor Bill Keller, "In the end, nobody, including the scientist who brought it up, could take the story beyond speculation. In the crush of election-finale stories, it died a quiet, unlamented death."

Unlamented by who?

The only "speculation" that could be involved is just what the bulge was. Short of a White House confession, there would seem no way to resolve that. So is that the standard? Anything short of an official confession makes a story unrunnable?

There clearly, undeniably, was something there. The White House initially claimed the photos had been doctored, then blamed it on a "badly tailored suit," then Shrub said it was a "poorly tailored shirt," and then a source said it was a bulletproof vest (even though Bush had specifically denied that and, according to the FAIR article, "no known vests have rear protuberances resembling the image discovered by Nelson").

The Times, then, was presented with story not only involving likely cheating in the debate but one where the White House blatantly lied four different ways. When the story could be considered odd or amusing, when it could be used as an example of how a "rumor" among "political conspiracists ... takes hold in dark corners of the public imagination," it got covered. But when it turned serious, it was spiked, allowed to die "a quiet, unlamented death."

I ask again: Unlamented by who?