1. cgh2009 | 03.24.09

The Fox aparachiks having their day with the the teleprompter while our country is decaying. Good for them. For my part, I was pleased with the president’s commitment to dramatically increasing funding for veterans’ care (unlike the case with our previous White House occupant), as well as his commitment to reducing the cost of healthcare to help balance our budget in the longer term. No more slick off-budget appropriations for ill-conceived and managed wars. Transparency as opposed to “Voodoo” budgeting. How refreshing! … And on the Ed Henry matter … how many follow-ups is this guy entitled to? LOL. Sorry if Barack bruised his apparently (very) sensitive ego. I’m tearing up as I type. Also sorry if the matter of trillions of dollars to try and save our economy trumps $160 million.

2. Deontée | 03.25.09

Thanks, Jimmy. I certainly appreciate the mention. However, to say that I “…[don’t] like the conversation” is putting it mildly. Out of all things to criticize and critique the President for, his use of a teleprompter — given all that faces us as Americans — is not one of them.

The mere fact that some “news” organizations considered it newsworthy should give us all pause. While pundits are generating faux concern over trivial matters, someone, somewhere, will be preparing the eulogy for modern journalism.

And nothing would please me more, than to see it delivered using a teleprompter.

3. Jake | 03.25.09

This teleprompter issue shows just how little the right has to go on when trying to belittle Obama.

In the end, this is something only those on the far right care about. The majority of Americans prefer Obama with a teleprompter giving moving speeches to Bush without a teleprompter giving lessons on how to butcher the English Language.

4. Michael | 03.25.09

“Apparatchik?” Ad hominem loses the argument every time, cgh.

I still question whether all of the moves to “save” the economy have done any good at all? After all, very little of TARP funds aave been disbursed and the economy may already be righting itself. Adam Smith seems to have fixed it without government help.

My fear is that the Trillion and change that Bush et al threw at the problem, in combination with the several trillions President Obama has spent (I’ve seen anything from $1-9 trillion) may so burden our economy with national debt that we may actually lengthen the crisis.

5. a giant slor | 03.25.09

This guffawing about teleprompters shows how utterly bankrupt the right-wing response is to Obama. It’s as if past presidents never used teleprompters for important statements. It’s as if Obama didn’t speak articulately for most of the hour, without a teleprompter, in response to questions he didn’t pre-select. But the right wing just ignores this and continues to laugh amongst themselves that Obama is “lost” without a teleprompter. I love this, because they’re the only fools parroting this line. They’ll continue to squawk about nonsense and trivialities, all the while underestimating Obama and allowing themselves to be overwhelmed politically. Looking forward to it!

6. sandra | 03.25.09

I also think President Obama should have been more professional to Ed Henry. Mr. Obama did not answer the question, and Mr. Henry simply restated it because he was hoping for a response. Other reporters did the same thing, but Mr. Obama displayed an attitude toward Mr. Henry that was NOT appropriate. I think Mr. Obama should calm himself down. If you call a press conference, you are opening yourself up to being questioned. Now, don’t take a straightforward question as a sign of disrespect. If you didn’t want to be questioned, now you shouldn’t have called the press conference. duh

7. The Goat Whisperer | 03.25.09

0bamabot cgh2009, too funny! Never let a fact stand in the way of what 0bama’s teleprompter sez.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45199&print=on

White House (CNSNews.com) – White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs declined on Tuesday to provide any further explanation of a plan the administration is considering to have the Department of Veterans Affairs bill the private heath insurance of veterans for service-related injuries.

0bama is a teleprompter reading fraud. Question is: Who’s writing Dearest Leader’s lines anyway?

TGW

8. NJ | 03.25.09

Don’t know what the big deal abt the tele prompter is? It just allows to finish the speech faster rather than look down to the notes and read it. Its just a matter of efficiency. Why do you want to remember the grammer of any speech - when there are 1000 things ringing in the head?

9. Alfred Packer | 03.25.09

cgh,

I would have found his “commitment” to increasing the funding of Vet-Care pleasing, if it wasn’t just an attempt to fix the damage of his earlier plan of “let wounded combat veterans foot their own healthcare.”

And, I might add, how is reducing the cost of healthcare jibe with a plan to roll out a nationwide, government funded heathcare program? Answer: it doesn’t. Smoke and mirrors doesn’t equal ‘transparancy.’

10. Southernoregon | 03.25.09

Who cares??

11. jim | 03.25.09

the ‘one’ is not so bright without a telepromter, in fact on ‘60 minutes’ he often chuckled after responding to a question. his attempt to joke on leno backfired. all in all, the ‘one’ is a bit of a dolt if not told what to do oe say.two bad presidents in a row, bad luck for us.

12. Mr. Unite Us | 03.25.09

So Obama used a teleprompter during his opening statement. So What?

TV newscasters use teleprompters everyday. This would include Fox News.
Bush often used a teleprompter. He just had a funny expression on his face when reading. Kind of like dear in the headights.

You remember that look.

13. mark12 | 03.25.09

Regarding the comment on Veterans’ benefits it was only last week that the President suggested that Veterans be required to pay for health insurance for war related injuries. Now, one of the writers above is praising him for mentioning an supposed increase in Veterans’ benefits. Better read the fine print.

14. Lucia Caprina | 03.25.09

Reading from a prepared script is thoughtful and makes the persons point..BUT speaking without it is a real indication of the persons
abilities. Dont they trust The One to ‘do the right thing ?’ He must
have been ‘ok’ did you see the smug look on his cheerleading squad ? Emanuel’s finger to nose and the smile on Valerie’s face. It appeared
that it was difficult to hide their glee. I felt that it was an empty
speech filled with rhetoric. At a time when people need answers all he
spewed was Political Jargon. He runs on EMPTY.

15. Michael G. | 03.25.09

We have plenty to say about Obama’s incompetence. This teleprompter deal just gives an additional reason to laugh a little. Don’t confuse our glee as “grasping for straws”. There is a lot of evidence that Dear Leader is nothing more than a demented pied-piper, leading the country towards the cliff of Communism. For instance, it’s sad that even actual Communists like China are denouncing Dear Leader’s moves as going too far.

You’re all a bunch of slaves…and unless you’re willing to remove your shackles and fight this maniac, you’re all complicit.

16. dee | 03.25.09

Our president shouldn’t be using a teleprompter. He should be spending several hours a day memorizing all 500+ lines of each speech for each daily press conference.

The rest of the country can go hang while he makes sure he can memorize all those lines, otherwise the GOP will make fun of him some more. Like the GOP knows, appearance is everything — substance means nothing.

17. Dee | 03.25.09

Considering how most of these comments are picking apart every word that comes out of the President’s mouth, don’t you think he should use a teleprompter? Otherwise, you will find even more fault. Even without a teleprompter, he speaks so much better than Bush ever could, so lay off the guy. Because he has taken the bull by the horns, so to speak, on this economic mess, foolish people expect him to fix everything in 64 days that it took our prior presidents 25 years to totally wreck.

18. Jeff | 03.25.09

The BIG DEAL here goes back to the hypocricy of the left and Obama in particular. For 8 years all we heard was how GWB was not up to the job. Many on the left accused him of being inept and incompetent. Obama was supposed to be the best and the brightest and bring change to the world. So when Obama cannot even make an opening statement at a press conference without a teleprompter, it tells me that he is not as bright, not as intelligent, and not as thoughtful as we were led to believe. Had Bush used teleprompters for every public speaking event, you can bet the left would have used it to exemplify his incompetence. The hypociricy is how Obama gets a pass. Is it a big thing? No. But we on the right see the irony and the hypocricy in Obama that is becoming more evident every day. As for me, I’m still waiting to see the “Change” that Obama represents. He has continued the Bush policy of running up deficits, bailing out wall street and big business, growing the government, maintaining the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, keeping Gitmo open, and the list goes on. Sure he talks about a different path, but so far he’s taken the Bush approach and put it on steriods!

19. jondoe | 03.25.09

“16. dee | 03.25.09

Our president shouldn’t be using a teleprompter. He should be spending several hours a day memorizing all 500+ lines of each speech for each daily press conference.

The rest of the country can go hang while he makes sure he can memorize all those lines, otherwise the GOP will make fun of him some more. Like the GOP knows, appearance is everything — substance means nothing.”

Maybe instead ot holding a daily press conference to stroke his ego he should try to actually do something, and stop being candidate obama.
He is nothing but a puppet whose strings are being pulled by GOD knows who

20. Iraq Veterans Wife | 03.25.09

Obama pushing for Veterans healthcare??? What country are you living in and what president are you referring to? Obama wants to release the combatants that Americans sent to GITMO just for them to hunt down the Vets who helped put them there. As for the healthcare for Veterans, I don’t think paying for healthcare with injuries sustained while protecting this country’s freedom should be praised- It seems too many Americans are taking the “spin” as gospel and not really examining what is actually being proposed. Most of the blah blah is in direct contradiction to what this Admin is doing. I say stop talking and start doing. For Obama my suggestion would be: Stay off the late night TV and try to focus on helping this country- you were elected to do a job not be a celebrity. We have real people and real families who need help! BTW, anyone thinking this Admin is helping our military needs to spend less time in chat and more time researching- 2010 will be the lowest pay raise in the history of our country. I DON’T call that supporting our troops!

21. Jay | 03.25.09

Give me a break. Without someone else typing into the teleprompter this guy is a boob!And you really think he’s the savior of all…hmmm. More deficit spending than all other presidents combined…hmmm. He laughs on Leno and 60 Minutes because he hasn’t a clue and the Kool-Aid drinkers keep right on drinking…hmmm.

22. Jill T. | 03.25.09

Is it really terrible that he used a large TV screen? Who the heck cares!? There are bigger things to worry about right now than what he used to help him with his speech!

23. greg | 03.25.09

f the president was using the teleprompter or a large screen to accurately convey his opening statement what is the problem? We all know that each word he says can do equally provoke positive and negative reactions in a wide range of areas .. remember the Special Olympics comment…It might matter if the questions and answers were already there word for word but they are not…

Fox, Rush/Cheney et. al. that want failure are only planting bad ideas with these comments and they are being obstructionists. Look at the mess we are in after years and years of republican control?

Mr. President Obama I say keep using whatever you have to move this country forward and eventually these negative people will come to their senses and allow us as Americans TOGETHER to build a stronger society FOR ALL.

24. cgh2009 | 03.25.09

Goat Whisperer: You can quote right wing blogs all day long; the fact is that this president’s policies of attempting to fix the VA. Quoting the March 18th NY Times:

“Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, said Mr. Obama was requesting $113 billion for the department in 2010, an increase of 16 percent over this year’s amount. The budget includes money to treat 419,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, up 15 percent from this year and 61 percent from 2008.”

Don’t know about you, but that sounds like an increase in funding to me The more you know …

Ok, so his initial plan had private insurers footing the bill; but it sure beats having signing bonuses for fighting in Iraq/Afghanistan taken away by the previous administration.

25. Jeff | 03.25.09

Aren’t teleprompters the high-tech version of what were once called Idiot Cards? That’s looking more and more like the perfect word.

26. JP | 03.25.09

I like how he had pre-selected the people who could ask questions, wouldnt want to have a real press conf!

27. DDT23 | 03.25.09

What in the heck is the issue about a teleprompter FOX News is sinking to its lowest as I see it. I never once heard or read them reporting about George W. Bush reading the teleprompter. **** he read from a teleprompter on his last and final speech to the nation(his farewell speech) and you could tell he was reading from it because when he got to a point where he could not see the words he improvised and got back on point of the speech ( he tried to throw in a joke) WHO IN THE **** CARES ABOUT A TELEPROMPTER….FOX/NEWS GET TO SOME REAL NEWS I NEVER LISTEN TO YOU ANYWAY EVEN BEFORE THE PRESIDENT WAS ELECTED AND I STILL DON’T I REALLY WISH THEY WOULD LOOSE ALL OF THEIR AUDIENCE AND CEASE TO EXIST….

28. Shawn | 03.25.09

If the president is just going to read from a teleprompter, then why does he even bother to show up? Why don’t we just move the teleprompter to the stage so the audience can read it then go home? Or better yet just print the speech from the teleprompter into the newspaper and conserve energy! To me, such use of a teleprompter only seems to reinforce the public’s suspicion that the president is just a puppet who is being told what to say and how to act.

29. David D | 03.25.09

Give me a break! Half the country have TVs that are bigger than that; of course mine isn’t, lol.
Seriously though, can’t we be a little more constructive in our responses to OUR President’s proposals and less derisive when we comment? He did win, fair and square.
However, I do realize that our News providers have relegated themselves to sound bites, snippets and sensationalism. But isn’t that a direct result of what our society is watching? Perhaps if we didn’t comment on the inane they would stop reporting it. ( after saying that, should I post this? … such a quandary! )

30. Mike | 03.25.09

Wow. Just…wow.

This is the best you wingnuts can come up with? Criticizing the man for using a teleprompter during a press conference? The sheer stupidity of the right wing and the American public in general never ceases to amaze me. God forbid we actually read a newspaper once in a while and engage in discourse concerning real issues.

“Next on Fox news… Obama has funny looking ears, does this affect his ability to lead?”

“sigh”

31. GDI | 03.25.09

I like the way the right wingers avoid any real issue conflict by using the “Drink the Kool-aid” phrase and calling Obama “The One” and “Fearless Leader”, among others. It’s just so patronizing and condescending! The simple matter of fact is that Obama has a better education, higher IQ, eloquent command of the English language, and genuine willingness to help the whole country than the last three Republican presidents put together. And, no, I didn’t drink any Kool-Aid. I just call ‘em like I see ‘em!

32. q-man | 03.25.09

For crying out loud…I consider myself to lean more to the conservative side, but I could care less about Obama’s teleprompter issues. My concern is where is the substance in this man? Where does he come from? What is his record? Out of all that, we get a man with a shady background of characters he has associated himself with and who mostly voted “PRESENT” during his time in the Illinois congress. We also get a man who has continued that “shadiness” into the White House by appointing numerous individuals with tax cheating issues in their closet. I’m willing to give the man a chance, but it’s a short leash for me given his background. I want to see him succeed. I want to see our country succeed, which is alot less that many left leaning pundits I’ve heard only want to see Bush fail and our country fail just so they can say NANNER! NANNER! NANNER! How does that make any sense? I was not a proponent of many of the Bush policies, but I did indeed know the substance of the man. I’m honestly searching for a silver lining in the substance of Mr. Obama.

33. t | 03.25.09

Fox news sucks!

34. Chris J | 03.25.09

Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this discussion. Look–presidents, public figures from time immemorial have used prepared remarks to open press conferences. Now, teleprompters are used because they are more efficient. But listen to Obama’s responses! They are completly improvised, frequently over 10 minutes long, coherent, and concise–like mini-lectures. You don’t have to like what he says, but the guy has command of the facts and complexities of the issues like no one I’ve seen. I wonder how the reporters feel, knowing that the president is the smartest guy in the room. Big change, I’ll say.

35. Robert Therrien | 03.25.09

“On President Obama’s testy response to CNN’s Ed Henry regarding the president’s delay in expressing outrage over the AIG bonuses, PhonemanA had a different answer than the president.

“HA! It took a couple days for Obama to respond ’cause they had to get all his lines on the teleprompter! LMAO!!” he writes.”

Wow Did Ed Henry ever stop and THINK! May the president was a little busy dealng with all the problems this nation has and after a couple of days took the time to respond and lets Americans know what he was doing and what was on his mind. Something most Government officials who work for us, the American people, always semm to forget to do.
Have these people nothing better to do than to try and demean others so they think they might look better themselves?

36. Brooke | 03.25.09

I’m just so relieved that we finally have a president who is able to follow
a teleprompter after eight years of that other guy.

37. Monica Dumois | 03.25.09

What our country needs are actions no smart words. No more mistakes,respect for our money and honest people.
If our brand new president and everybody around him have those requirements we are in good hands, otherwise I am moving to…I DON’T KNO, I need a suggestion.

38. Sven | 03.25.09

Lots of Obamabots on this site. You people must really hate your children to leave them facing 80-90% income tax rate for the rest of their lives. Any success they achieve will be squashed under jackboots.

39. James | 03.25.09

lololol how big is the tv? figures obasama wud do something like this. gud reporting keep it up. u hav a gud blog. can u join my twitter thx

40. CSerpent | 03.25.09

A teleprompter is a non-issue for O., and any past or future President. The right-wing and its media outlets need to Grow Up! Ditto mainstream journalism. As one Poster noted, journalism has become stuck in the sensational, in snippets, and sound bites. Start covering the issues in depth. There’s plenty of ‘em right now. And do your fact-checking.

41. Albus Dumblegore | 03.25.09

And everyone accused Bush of being dumb.

42. AdamG | 03.25.09

Choose your battles people. When one chooses to fight every battle, they’ve moved from strategy to rage. When one creates a battle where there is none, they’ve moved from fighting the good fight to picking a fight. Creating a conflict from something as trivial as visual queues is low.

43. Americangirl | 03.25.09

At a time of great national economic peril you want to know your fearless leader has real courage and smarts and is not still reading from the manual about how to unload the lifeboats from the Titanic while it is sinking!

And he barely seems to grasp the concepts he is speaking from the teleprompter. If he wrote them and is merely reading what he wrote so he can stay on course, why doesn’t it SOUND like he wrote them? Even if the ideas are his and someone else put them together for the teleprompter he still fails in making it sound like the IDEAS are his. Why is that??
The words are not his. The ideas are not his. That is what concerns me and should concern every American.
I’ve never felt this man was honest. And I do recall him arguing against having a character debate during the campaign; “the American people don’t care about character”. Oh yes I do.

44. wow | 03.25.09

Since no one has called him out yet…
JP (comment 26), you are a retard. That’s what they do at press conferences. They put them in order. You think he just chose who he wanted to ask questions? Shows how dumb Republicans are getting.

45. obamabot | 03.25.09

Sven (38):
I can guaruntee you that the income tax rate is not and will never be high under Obama. He just wants to raise the taxes from 36% to 39% if you make over 200K. He’s not taking away all of your money, as seems a Republican delusion. Man up and support your government.

46. mados123 | 03.25.09

He’s now going to be accused of teleprompter-ism and then there will be faux outrage over all those who dare to use!

47. RadianChalant | 03.25.09

President Obama needs one more teleprompter, directly in front of him. His head goes from side to side. On a serious note, give him a chance, REPUBLICANS / CONSERVATIVES; you gave Bush 8 long years. I will give the President an ample amount of time to do what he has to do. Back off and let the man do his job. Just like conservatives are always putting him down and not giving him support. When he does fix parts of the economy, we Democrats, are going to rub it in your faces. Hope lives.

48. Tbone | 03.25.09

to GI : If you call em, like you see em, perhaps you need to get your eyeglass prescription checked

49. Look AtThat | 03.25.09

Seeing how people are calling Reps. dumb shows you how the left is so “open-minded”. Just a bunch of haters disguising themselves as lovers.

50. David | 03.25.09

Jimmy Orr - You touched a nerve again I see. I continue to laugh derisively at the liberals who just can’t stand anybody poking fun at the new messiah. God forbid we should ever question Obama. And I can tell you for a certainty that these folks never chuckled at any of Bush’s linguistic missteps. Sure.

51. Carolina | 03.26.09

Ronald Reagan used a teleprompter for all his televised speeches, in very large print, so that he would not appear in public wearing glasses. There is nothing wrong with using a teleprompter. There is something politically motivated when a major news organization attempts to turn it into an issue for a sitting president, while that news organization claims to be “fair and balanced.”

52. Ryan Sheets | 03.26.09

I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but I don’t see what the issue is with him using a teleprompter. The lies he was reading off of the TV screen wouldn’t have been any more convincing to me had he said them himself. Make no mistake: Obama is Bush 2.0 and our economy is not getting better until the government backs the **** off. The treasury bubble is getting ready to burst. We may have temporarily stifled the housing market crisis, but we printed a lot of new money to get there. We are headed for double-digit inflation and Obama is pushing for huge deficit spending.
1) Due to inflation the treasury market will shift toward short-term bonds purchased on the assumption that the Federal Reserve will purchase them when the market is bailed out. Long-term treasuries will become undesirable as there will be no profit.
2) New treasuries created to fund the deficits will enter the market in competition with other undesirable bonds creating an overabundance and leading to decreased value. The Federal Reserve will be pressured to act.
3) Since the Federal Reserve can only purchase by printing new money all purchases will be made with inflationary money leading to further increased pressure to buy up “bad” treasuries.
4) Once the Fed has started buying up all treasuries the value of all other debts will begin to fall and we will see the beginning of the debt bubble. At this point we probably will have already seen hyperinflation, but assuming we make it to this point, it’s obvious that a bailout of all debt would destroy our economy completely.

53. G | 03.26.09

A president’s words are important, and should be chosen meticulously and spoken carefully. Teleprompters are a vital tool.

In times of uncertainty and crisis, a president should be face-to-face as much as possible. Leno’s show is the 21st century Fireside Chat.

Many of the questions, especially Henry’s, were salted with bias and accusation, meant more for provoking rather than dialogue.

54. Dr, No | 03.26.09

The media should just put the camera on the teleprompter since 0bama is saying it’s words.

55. Beth | 03.27.09

Well, about the teleprompter—If it had been George Bush using it like that, it would be headline news for days, weeks and months. The press would talk about how stupid he is because he has to use a teleprompter even for news conferences. They called him stupid anyway when he didn’t do anything less stupid than Obama or Biden. And our Pres. is trying to bankrupt this country, create chaos so he can turn us into a socialist country in every way. I hope the American people wake up and use their brains and not their emotions.

56. fromnj | 03.27.09

The teleprompter is the equivalent of notes when giving a speech. I would much rather have the President use notes (paper or electronic) for the prepared portion of his remarks, than waste his time memorizing lines.

The most interesting part of the press conference to me was the question/answer segment. Every time I hear the President answer questions (long after the teleprompter has gone dark), I learn something new about some of the complex problems he’s trying to grapple with. If people paid attention to his actual answers (rather than getting the Fox News “reader’s digest” version with commentary), they would come away with complete confidence that this man knows and understands the complexities of all the issues he discussed.

1. The Fine Art of Eccentricity · *click* I love you, Honey! OM NOM NOM … AHHHHHH! | 03.25.09