BushWired: Salon gets campaign responses

First, let me point out that the Salon piece I linked to yesterday is now their top story.

Meanwhile, over at the Salon War Room, we have two query-response iterations:

1. Mark McKinnon of the Bush campaign says a lot of cute stuff, and then, "The President has never been assisted by any audio signal."
   
   
2. Joe Lockhart from the Kerry campaign says he thinks a BushWire during the first debate is a near impossibility, and there's a direct denial from the Bush campaign's Matthew Dowd.

But if Bush has "never been assisted by any audio signal", then what is with the pressfolk who have been acting like it's an open secret and no big deal? And how do McKinnon and Dowd explain the "ghost voices" that have been picked up in CNN and other broadcasts of Administration events?

I have to say, I think the campaign (=McKinnon, above) have let themselves be suckered into a demonstrable falsehood here. Bush using a wire to give speeches, in lieu of a TelePrompTer, is no big deal and if he does that they should admit it. Bush using a wire during the Presidential Freakin' Debates is a big deal, but seems on the face of it unlikely (too risky). Bush using a wire during Press Conferences and presentations with foreign leaders (Jacques Chirac) is in a gray area - on the one hand he probably does this, and most voters probably wouldn't consider it a big deal, but at the same time they don't want to admit it. And so they deny the whole kit and kaboodle.

Leaving us with the challenge: Prove them wrong.