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.

The Republicans are scared. So scared they have started making up stories. These two have come out in the last few days.

Did Kerry have a Cheat Sheet?
This article claims Kerry had a cheat sheet during the Debates based on a blurry picture wehre Kerry removes something from his pocket right before the debate. Gee Drudge Report (hardly a reliable news source), have you ever heard of a pen?

The second story comes from an equally questionable “news” source, Fox News.

The Guardian ran a story on how Fox News apologized for airing quotes from Kerry that never existed. The website carried fabricated quotes attributed to John Kerry, in which he called himself a “metrosexual” who enjoys getting manicures.

How low will they go? Only time will tell.