Some years ago an audio recording-tape company launched an ad blitz that employed the now-famous slogan “Is It Live, Or Is It Memorex?” – the idea being that this particular brand’s cassettes were of such superior quality that you’d not be able to tell whether what you were hearing was real or mere playback from the magnetized storage medium.
Well, apparently, something similar is afoot with President Bush. Everybody remembers how during the 2000 bid for the White House the guy from Crawford, Tex., talked like a conservative and, for a time following his election, acted like one. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, he began speaking and behaving as though his middle initial was Ted Kennedy. On issues ranging from education to the environment, Republican Bush toed the Democrat party line.
People who thought they had put a real American in high office and rid 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. of the socialist vermin previously occupying it scratched their heads in puzzlement over whatever became of the conservative Dubya who appeared before them in stump speeches and debates along the campaign trail with promises to set us free from authoritarian, intrusive government.
As usual, I have the answer. The George W. Bush you today see on television is not really George W. Bush. It’s a fake image of him made possible by a frightening new invention from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Earlier this month, the leftist Boston Globe revealed that scientists at M.I.T. “have created the first realistic videos of people saying things they never said. In one demonstration, the researchers taped a woman speaking into a camera, and then reprocessed the footage into a new video that showed her speaking entirely new sentences, and even mouthing words to a song in Japanese, a language she does not speak. The results were enough to fool viewers consistently.”
The Globe then cheerfully informed us that “the technology will also provide a powerful new tool for fraud and propaganda – and will eventually cast doubt on everything from video surveillance to presidential addresses.”
Aha! See? There it is – the admission that this technology could be used on presidents. Well, my friends, I’m here to tell you that it already is being used on presidents – one in particular: Bush 43.
Here’s my theory. The real George Bush – the conservative you and I voted for – was kidnapped about a year ago and is being held in an abandoned warehouse down by the docks (which is where kidnap victims are always kept by their abductors). Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, et al, are running the country now. They come up with socialist legislation, pass it, then get one of their criminal acquaintances – a forgery pro on parole from Sing Sing – to put a reasonable facsimile of Bush’s signature on it. That night, on the news, they show you a clip of the signing ceremony – and it’s Bush alright, only it’s stock footage of him taken in 2001 after he signed the tax cut, the last conservative piece of business he was able to get done before they nabbed him and stuffed him in that waterfront warehouse. Next, you see a close-up of Bush, explaining why he didn’t veto the measure. This is where the M.I.T. facial-animation invention comes into play: by manipulating the stock footage, they have Bush convincingly appear to say that communism is good for our country and thus this new law will be an important addition to the arsenal Big Government has at its disposal to bring hugs and kisses and hot cocoa and fresh bed-linens to a divided and hurting nation and blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, you’re sitting at home viewing all this in utter disbelief, going “What the hell?”
Hell is exactly right. Because that’s where the idea for this facial-animation technology originated. Imagine the first time the scientists gathered at a conference to discuss it and map out its development. It probably went something like this:
Conference chairman: “My fellow scientists, it is only too obvious that what this world needs most is more fraud and deceit. Look around you. Tragically, there’s just not enough mendacity available for all concerned. I ask of you, what can we do to remedy this deplorable state of affairs?”
Pointy-headed guy in audience: “Mr. Chairman, I’d like to suggest we move forward with my department’s cloning project. We’re proposing to clone a race of supermen who are genetically engineered to do nothing but lie with unsurpassed smoothness. Bill Clinton has already volunteered his DNA to get us started.”
Chairman: “Has potential. But let’s hear some more ideas first. You, there – you in the back wearing the Grim Reaper hood and whose face is hidden in deep shadow. Any thoughts?”
Grim Reaper hood-wearer (gesturing with his raised, skeletal finger): “Three words. Facial. Animation. Technology. It will be the wave of the future. For, whoever controls the technology of facial animation can rule the world through disinformation. Up would be down, down would be up and the masses would be unable to tell the difference. After they become conditioned to total, continuous deception, you could even show footage of someone you claim is the real Jesus Christ mouthing the words “Glory to Satan – obey his commandments” and people would believe it, even though camcorders didn’t exist 2,000 years ago.”
Chairman: “Superb. I think we’re all in agreement then. Facial animation technology is the way to solve our worldwide shortage of fraud and deceit. But how would we sell it to the public? There’s still a multitude of the unwashed running around loose out there who might object to us spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a technology whose only real use is to improve the ability of Big Brother to play tricks on them.”
Grim: “No problemo. Tell them it’s intended purpose is to give new life to long-dead Hollywood icons. For example, who wouldn’t love to see breathy, hush-voiced Marilyn Monroe brought back from the grave with all-new dialogue that has her talking dirty like Julia Roberts in her role as loud, foul-mouthed Erin Brockovich? Can you say sexy?”
Oh yeah, now there’s a winning ploy for you. I just can’t wait to see John Wayne reanimated and updated so that his famous line of “I’m not gonna hit ya; like hell I’m not gonna hit ya” becomes the politically correct “I’m not gonna knit ya an AIDS quilt; like hell I’m not gonna knit ya an AIDS quilt.”
Fortunately for us who love and seek after truth, facial-animation technology still has limitations. According to The Globe, the M.I.T. method “works only on video of a person facing a camera and not moving much, like a newscaster….[T]he new method only seems lifelike for a sentence or two at a time, because over longer stretches, the speaker seems to lack emotion.” Which is why early experiments with the technology centered around frozen-in-place Ted Koppel (I kid you not).
Still, the geniuses at M.I.T. are determined to overcome. They’re adamant that the world needs this technology. And, what the world needs, the world gets – whether it wants it or not. “It is only a matter of time before somebody can get enough good video of your face to have it do what they like,” The Globe quotes one Matthew Brand, a research scientist at a Cambridge-based laboratory for Mitsubishi Electric.
I don’t know what you and I can do about this monstrous evil other than to suggest we start scouring the pier district until we find that abandoned warehouse where the real President Bush has been stashed. Once we un-gag and untie him, maybe he can help us figure out some way to foil the plans of the deceivers. Perhaps he can do an executive order banning all such technology from our shores and pledge to drop a daisy-cutter or two on any foreign lab that decides to pick up the ball and run with it. But at least from then on, when Bush speaks to us on camera at a bill-signing ceremony, we’ll know whether he’s live or Memorex.