The Sarah Palin Broken TelePrompTer Myth
ST. PAUL—Interesting bit of myth-making, mistaken reporting or both. Did Sarah Palin's TelePrompTer malfunction? A very little bit, but not much.
RedState is reporting that Sarah Palin's TelePrompTer broke last night, scrolling "significantly from where Governor Palin was in the speech." Politico's Jonathan Martin disputes the report. "Perhaps there were moments where it scrolled slightly past her exact point in the speech," Martin writes. "But I was sitting in the press section next to the stage, within easy eyeshot of the Teleprompter. I frequently looked up at the machine, and there was no serious malfunction. A top convention planner confirms this morning that there were no major problems."
I too was sitting in the press section, (behind Palin and off to her right side). I had a clear view of the TelePrompTer, and read along with her.
At one point I noticed, and remarked to a colleague, that it would jog a line or two ahead of where she had paused. I noticed that she seemed to use the pause afforded by applause to glance down at the papers in front of her. Having found the missing line or two (it was not more than that), she would resume.
Certainly she managed the hiccups smoothly, but this is not an example of winging it in the same vein as a Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, or Clinton might have.
Tags: speeches | Republican National Convention | Sarah Palin
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Reader Comments
RE: teleprompter
That last lint "...Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, or Clinton might have." There was a reported incident where the teleprompter broke/malfunctioned during a Clinton speech (I am not too sure about the other 3) and he continued to give his speech off of memory.
xO
All Good Realationship should start out with a LIE
Consider how insecure one must be to lie about a false teleprompter malfunction at the RNC during a rally in Canton Ohio. How insignificant is it that you can see Russia from your house, or stop over for refueling on the boarder and say you entered into Iraq? As insignificant as the shallow purchase of a tanning bed to look good and the paranoia that prompts one to say it's because you have S.A.D - a very serious illness. So is Sara Palin saying to the American people, she has a mental disorder caused by seasonal depression? Or is she saying she is not on medication as prescribed by most physicians who treat S.A.D?
She continues today with more lies, stating she will show financial accountability of money spent so the American people will know where their money is going when she is VP, but as it stands now, she refuses to show her income tax statements as Biden, McCain and Obama has already done, or show any documents or co-operate on the bi-partisan investigation of troopergate.
But wait! Surely she knows even more about the world financial market than Obama or Biden. After all, she's been living inside her Alaskan Igloo running a densely populated city Government for 20 months now. That is, before being plucked out the gem of America’s heartland (remote Alaska)for her cosmetic appeal to update John McCain's antiquated Washington insider image.
Ask John about his friends, the Keaton 5 back in 1989, he knows a thing or two about finances too.
Teleprompter
The teleprompter is just a tool to aid memory and presentation. It does not put words in speakers mouths - it just presents a pre-written script to them. The prompter follows the speaker and not the speaker the prompter (my wife runs a premier teleprompter company). The teleprompter cannot be held responsibly for what Sarah Palin said good, nor bad. It seems that Palin's teleprompter may not have been on the ball if they were getting ahead of the speaker (possibly they had a bad audio feed or something and could not hear her properly - who knows), but that is as far as their responsibility goes; they did not write the speech and they did not improvise on it.
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