Our Presidential puppet
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| Thu, 03-05-2009 - 5:04pm |
President Obama is a great speaker, he has wonderful oratory skills. However it seems he isn't a speech maker, instead he is a speech reader. His words are controlled by others. He is in effect our first Presidential puppet. Just like so many dolls, he is cute, lovable and pretty.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19663.html
Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter
President Barack Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter.
The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.
Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.
Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.
After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in Hawaii. But no such luck.
His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the Grand Foyer.
“It’s just something presidents haven’t done,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. “It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter.”
Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.
The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. “Kathy,” Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled.
Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he's been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

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And those gaffes would be........? Hard to get traction when there's so little material with which to work! I'll laugh just as loudly as anybody else when the POTUS flubs up.
But by comparison with his predecessor, Obama just doesn't have the comedic impact in the "open mouth and insert foot", mangle the language/syntax; and look like a world-class idiot" categories.
Jabberwocka
Review the video link I provided. Review the thread about President Obama needing a TelePrompter to speak.
If a Republican had talked about visiting 57 states, it would be humor all over this room which would prove to all liberals he was an idiot.
If President Bush couldn't talk without a TelePrompter it'd be a major joke.
Our new fearless leader is immune from lampooning, as liberals adore him, and liberals drive most of the media.
~Our new fearless leader is immune from lampooning, as liberals adore him, and liberals drive most of the media.~
Don't tell that to Jon Stewart, because he's been having a lovely time lampooning Obama, and I've enjoyed it.
I did view the YouTube video and the bit about the teleprompter too.
It would appear that you're arguing that Obama must be fluent, at all times, in all places without any reliance on prompts ("tele-") included. And it would take a being of colossal surety and superhuman omniscience to never make a mistake. God-like. Dare I say.....errr.....ummm....messianic?! And considering the demands on his time and energy, he's performing far far better than his fumble-mouthed predecessor.
I don't see the teleprompter as a major impediment. The assumption that if Obama uses one, it must surely be due to a need to read someone else's words is a non sequitur. I have given presentations with only the benefit of note cards--and it's not easy. IF I had been allowed to use a teleprompter to provide my own cues, I'd have latched onto it with as much alacrity as I did the wordprocessor in lieu of handwritten or laboriously typed notes.
Next up, the right wing will be dinging Obama because he wants to use his Blackberry instead of two tin cans and string!
Jabberwocka
Most speakers still use notes I don't see the difference.
"the right wing will be dinging Obama because he wants to use his Blackberry instead of two tin cans and string!"
LOL Good one!
Jon Favreau, 27
Director of Speechwriting
Romantic Status: Single
Fun fact: Of working with Obama, Favreau, who graduated from Holy Cross in 2003, told Newsweek: "What I do is to sit with him for half an hour...He talks and I type everything he says. I reshape it, I write. He writes, he reshapes it. That's how we get a finished product."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/04/whos-the-white-houses-hot_n_171800.html
Next up, the right wing will be dinging Obama because he wants to use his Blackberry instead of two tin cans and string!
ROTFLOL!!
A bit of background first... Saskatchewan is historically pretty liberal (ex. birthplace of what's now our NDP), and Harper is leader of the Conservative Party.
~And, I've seen Pres. Obama lampooned by most of the 'late night' crowd...including SNL.
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