Todd pushes back on "[t]he right" for having "pounced on" Obama for teleprompter use

To my more conservative friends, this is the biggest thing to them. They keep bringing this up, again, and again. I mean, seriously. The President, and lots of other people use teleprompters. They act as if the technology was just invented a few minutes ago, and somehow Obama has an unfair advantage in using it.

The teleprompter meme is so stupid I don't even know where to go with it. I was listening to Rush a couple of weeks ago as an exercise in patience, and he led into this clip of Obama answering some questions as Obama not being able to put a sentence together, and he was a stammering fool. He played the clip, and there were a few pauses, and a couple of, "ahs", but he was far from a stammering fool. The clip totally disproved everything Rush said.

I'm pretty happy though that what they have to attack him with is his use of a teleprompter. I also heard another right wing nut bag talking about if Obama is so smart, and well spoken, why doesn't he write his own speeches, and save us some taxpayer money and get rid of the speech writing staff. He was serious. His reason? Well, if he could do all of the prep and writing for his show, why in the world couldn't Obama do his own?

These folks, really have no clue.

The focus on teleprompters by the right-wing just shows that they have nothing else to attack the President on. They would much rather see a president who makes inane and moronic extempore statements from the podium like...'I am the decider' or 'being President is a tough job'!

i'm so glad to see chuck make this argument. Joe has actually used this TP on his radio show (roughly saying when o' doesn't use tel he has blooper moments like the SO comment on leno and the faux laugh controversy) and is a bit disingenuous to shift the argument to Bush since he is also a perpetrator of this teleprompter fetish. They completely ignore

 

It would be good if someone can actually add up the number of speeches and remarks Pres. O' has given since inauguration as opp to Bush.

 

Good job, as always

They nailed it at the end by asking WHY President Bush did not use one during his presidency - or lack of presidency. President O also had a stack of papers on the podium to help him with answers and no one seems to be criticizing him for that. AND his answer to the question about why he waited a few days before expressing outrage about the AIG bonuses summed it up: "I like to know what I am talking about BEFORE I speak".  More power to his use of "new" technology that's been around since people have been giving speeches; whether it's three by five cards or electronic prompts.  It proves that he knows what he says has serious impact on all of us.