It was a pen, but not just any pen…. this pen:
On a more serious note, here was the response released from the Kerry campaign:
October 4, 2004 — Was John Kerry trying to pull something at the debate last week?
That question was burning up the Internet yesterday after a slo-mo review of the footage showed the Massachusetts senator taking an object out of his right pocket before the first question.Was it a cheat sheet ? as some conservative bloggers claimed ? or was it something innocuous?
Either way, it would violate the debate rules agreed to by both campaigns: “No props, notes . . . or other tangible things may be brought into the debate.”
Many blogs offered links to the “Pocket-gate” footage. One, INDC Journal, even posted frame-by-frame stills purporting to show Kerry pulling out a notecard and placing it onto the podium.
But the mystery was solved when The Post reviewed a Fox News Channel feed from Thursday’s debate: Kerry pulled out . . . a black pen.
Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade remained angry at the bloggers’ guilt-by-insinuation.
“The right-wing attack machine will say anything to steal a debate do-over,” he said.
“We plead guilty to having a pen.”
The Bush campaign did not comment.