Obama Used a Teleprompter to Read His Press Conference Opening Statement! So?
Updated on 3/25/09: An update has been added to the end of this blog post.
One part of the Obama press conference that is bound to get a disproportionate amount of attention, especially on the right wing of the blogosphere (and already has) is the fact that the president read his opening statement from a TelePrompTer.
Let me repeat: He read his prepared remarks to open his hour-long question-and-answer.
This is not extraordinary for a president or any politician, but because of the Obama teleprompter fixation, it becomes a notable event. AP's Ron Fournier described the device as a "familiar crutch." Crutch? Really? That implies that Obama suffers some sort of debility that requires additional aid. And while some presidents might have memorized their opening statement and delivered it from memory (Richard Nixon comes to mind), it is not uncommon to read a prepared statement to open a press conference. And it's not odd to use a teleprompter as opposed to pieces of paper on the podium.
If he starts reading off a teleprompter when answering questions, that would be news-worthy (and worrying). But until then the "teleprompter issue" is more interesting for what it says about those who keep raising it than about Barack Obama. (Mostly. See this post by Ed Walsh over at Podium Pundits for a thoughtful explanation of the teleprompter question—and not simply thoughtful because it's relatively nice to me.)
- Update: James Fallows, a former chief presidential speechwriter (the youngest ever, in fact), has a smart take on this "controversy."
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Tags: speeches | Barack Obama
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Reader Comments
All nonsense talk
Of course it is nothing wrong to use the teleprompter. I am just wondering whether he knows what he was saying the whole time he was reading from the teleprompter.
Better President
Sure, the deficit is higher, but now it's being counted correctly. No longer broken up into "emergency bills" including for a war that had been going on for years. Now we're stuck with the financial mess and thanks to the previous administration's tax cuts, the deficit is $trillions higher than it should be and it did almost nothing for jobs or our infrastructure.
I don't mind having a president that needs to consult teleprompters to get the message out, since it shows he's not spending his time memorizing his opening comments, he can spend that time working on the economy, energy policy, healthcare and national defense. Go Barack!
Whether you read it or make it up
Folks, it's still both bad news and a LIE. To put it as simple as possible:
The US deficit stood at $562 Billion the day Obama took office.
With the plans already inacted in just over 2 months, the deficit is 338% higher for 2010 or 1.9 Trillion.
For those of you who may not know, a Trillion is 1000 Billion or: $1,000,000,000,000.
For those of you who may not know, the deficit is what we spend that we do not have.
This amount of money spent equals $4371.00 for every man, woman and child in the US.
All this from the man who labled Bush as an "over-spender" and vowed to "examine every program to cut Government waste and spending". These figures come from the Congressional Budget Office and the US Census. Check for yourself.
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