I just finished watching the debate from C-span.org and that's what I thought too. But to go further since he had paper already there no one needed to know when he did his notes. By the end of the debate Bush had written several pages he shuffled while Kerry talked. Also the last 2 minutes of Bush's closing were there camera's on Kerry? I noticed on C-span.org the camera was on Bush the whole 2 minutes.
He had many opportunities to clean up.
Previously some one mentioned that handlers came out and cleaned the Kerry podium quickly.