Normally, I enjoy looking at and talking about bulges in men's clothing. Hello! Happy to see me today?

But I'm tired of presidential bulges, frankly. Since the Clenis still gets trotted out, linguistically speaking, by Republicans even today ["but what about all that money Clinton's blow job cost us, huh?"], I'm not keen to hear about yet another presidential pup tent, even if it's nowhere near the presidential pup.

So I don't want to see any more stories about what President Bush might have been wearing under his jacket during the first presidential debate until someone has real, gen-u-ine EVIDENCE that the bulge in his jacket was caused by something other than bad posture, poor tailoring, or an alien parasite feasting on the president's spinal fluid. Because until then, the story will — and does — sound like an act of desperation by people who should not be feeling desperate. Kerry is still holding his own, so the last thing he needs is for some publicity-seeking supporter to go off half-cocked and pull a junior "CSI" routine using Photoshop and some rumpled shirts.

Unless, maybe, that supporter is a NASA physicist who specializes in image analysis.

Today, Salon ran a story about a physicist who claims to have proven that the rectangular bulge in the back of the president's jacket could not have been caused by a wrinkled shirt underneath, as the president claims.

Maybe I should believe this guy. It sure would be fun! After all, Dr. Robert M. Nelson, the scientist in question, has some lofty credentials:

He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.

So I suppose I have to concede that Nelson, a rocket scientist, is far more qualified than I am to analyze Bush's bulge. Nelson doesn't claim to know what the bulge is, specifically, just what it is not, specifically. But he does comment on what it could be — a radio device — and he's willing to stake his world renowned reputation on it. But I still don't quite believe there's a news story here, at least not yet. Nelson hasn't seen the actual jacket or shirt, and yet he claims having scientific evidence that proves the president lied when he said what was under that jacket.

This evidence comes in the form of Photoshopped images captured from a video tape of the debate:

Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate.

[snip]

Nelson used the computer software program Photoshop to enhance the texture in Bush's jacket. The process in no way alters the image but sharpens its edges and accents the creases and wrinkles.

Apparently, this is the same process they use on "CSI" and at NASA. Okay, works for me, since it's hard to argue with the people who make TV shows. Next, Nelson experimented with clothing, trying to recreate the Bush bulge.

It's all about light and shadows, [Nelson] says. The angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush's jacket expose contours that fit no one's picture of human anatomy and wrinkled shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn't produce anything close to the Bush bulge. [Emphasis bhw]