Teleprompter Anecdotes – Amusing!
Posted by Bill in Teleprompter aka Autocue Monday, 27 February 2012 21:26 No Comments
Enjoy the following teleprompter references in this political season.
For some reason President Obama has been singled out for his use of the teleprompter. It only enhances his unquestioned ability to communicate.
Here is an example of the brouhaha surrounding the use of the teleprompter:
The Truth About Obama’s Irish Teleprompter “Gaffe”
Dozens of readers emailed me to ask why I hadn’t include the teleprompter mix-up at last week’s St Patrick Day event in my top 10 gaffes by Barack Obama and Joe Biden when the president supposedly thanked himself for hosting the event because the wrong speech was loaded onto the machine.
Well, it seemed a bit fishy to me and there was no video. And upon further investigation – Obamaphobes and dittoheads brace yourselves for a big disappointment – I can confirm that there was no gaffe by the president.
This is what happened.
Mr Obama hosted an evening reception for the visiting Irish premier Brian Cowen and other Emerald Isle and Irish-American dignitaries in the State Dining Room of the White House. First up, Vice President Joe Biden. Then, President Obama. So far, so unremarkable. Read a transcript of their comments here.
Then it got a bit murky and open to misinterpretation because Cowen’s speech was not transcribed by the White House or Federal News Service and the event was covered by a “print only” pool – meaning there were no media cameras present.
The most authoritative account I can find was from pool reporter William Englund of National Journal. His pool report stated:
“Then it was Cowen’s turn, and he was in for a surprise. ‘We begin by welcoming today a strong friend of the United States,’ he said–then stopped in surprise as he realized he was reading President Obama’s speech off the teleprompter. ‘Why don’t these things work for me?’ he asked, as the crowd roared. ‘Thank you for having us. Who said these things were idiot-proof?’ Then he got his bearings and gave the same talk that he delivered in the East Room. When he ended, at 8:12, Obama stepped to the microphone and said, ‘First, I’d like to say thank you to President Obama…(much laughter). Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everybody.’ Then we were escorted out.”
That was pretty clear: there was a teleprompter mix up and the fall guy was Cowen. Obama stepped in after Cowen’s five-minute speech to make a good-natured and well-received joke at the Irish premier’s expense.
Ironically, therefore, Obama was ad-libbing rather than mindlessly reading the wrong speech from a teleprompter.
I’ve exchanged emails with Englund and he confirmed this was the case and kindly supplied me with an audio file of the event that removes all doubt.
In the recording, Cowen begins speaking by ad libbing, saying: “Good evening everybody and welcome to St Patrick’s Day at the White House. And I think it’s particularly fitting that we gather tonight at the house that was, after all, designed and built by an Irish architect.”
Then he goes into Obama’s speech, and realises his boob 18 words into it: “We have had a wonderful day that began by meeting with a strong friend of the United States…that’s your speech.”
After Cowen got his act together – amid uproarious laughter – and completed his speech, Obama returned to the microphone for his little joke, as per the pool report.
Somehow, somewhere this all got mixed up, inadvertently or otherwise. The Associated Press reported it this way. Accurate enough – though very sparse and including the slightly ambiguous line: “In doing so, President Obama thanked President Obama for inviting everyone over.”
This was transformed into Obama making a mistake, as in this account, in the Times, written in London by an online reporter for their website. “On this occasion, as a laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium, the script was belatedly switched over to the Taoiseach’s text – leaving Mr Obama inadvertently thanking himself for inviting everyone, to further laughter,” went the report. “‘First, I’d like to say thank you to President Obama!’ the President said.”
This misreporting fed into the prevailing anti-Obama theme that he cannot speak without a teleprompter.
Here’s the hay that Rush Limbaugh gleefully made with the botched version of the story:
It’s rubbish, of course, to argue that Obama cannot speak without a teleprompter. On the campaign trail, Obama often spoke off the cuff and did so remarkably well. Anyone denying that is not living in the real world and his political opponents are deluding themselves if they think he is not a good – at times, superb – speaker.
He had off days on the campaign trail but on top form he was a campaigner without rival. I remember him at the height of his campaigning powers at an event in Alexandria, Virginia last February. Here’s a sample of what I saw (note he is not using a teleprompter):
Which isn’t to say that Obama doesn’t have a teleprompter “issue”. That’s now been well established by Politico and the Washington Post. Relatively late in the campaign – around the time of his “lipstick on a pig” slip – he began to use a teleprompter all the time. Since then, it seems to have become a bit of a crutch.
I’m surprised, by the way, that the White House isn’t rebutting misleading stories such as the St Patrick’s Day one. Once a perception gets embedded into the public consciousness it’s difficult to erase it – whether it’s accurate or not.
Chris Mathews commented on Mitt Romney after his use of the teleprompter at victory speech in New Hampshire. He also referred to Matt Lauer’s interview with Mitt Romney and his allusion to class warfare. Mathews said “This gets to a broader question as to why Romney needs to be scripted, why he’s really good with a teleprompter, why he always gets in trouble in spontaneous moments. He seemed surprised by Matt Lauer’s comments.
And…
“Yesterday, President Obama’s teleprompter was stolen. Police are on the lookout for a thief that’s eloquent and spreading a message of hope.” –Conan O’Brien
And…
For reasons I’ve never fully understood, Republicans love teleprompter jokes, and yesterday’s GOP gathering in Florida featured one tired line after another. But as Evan McMorris-Santoro noted, Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a horrible public speaker, took the joke “a little meta.”
The first-term Gov. Scott (not known for his public speaking skills, to be sure) started reading his speech off a set of prompters at the podium. As he started talking, the state GOP sent reporters the prepared version of his remarks.
You know where this is going.
From the prepared remarks (complete with what appear to be prompter directions to emphasize the joke):
“Good afternoon, and welcome to Presidency 5!
“I have to admit, I was a little nervous when I looked out here. I saw all the TV cameras and a teleprompter. I figured President Obama must be here – giving another speech about raising taxes!“[emphasis in the original]
Most reasonable people should be able to accept a simple rule: if you’re telling teleprompter jokes from a teleprompter, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re telling bad teleprompter jokes from a teleprompter, it’s time to think of a new bit.
And there’s another:
CPAC Speakers Mock Obama’s Teleprompter
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Brendan Smialowski for The New York TimesAs he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference, Marco Rubio stood by a teleprompter while he ribbed President Obama about using a Teleprompter.The Conservative Political Action Conference opened Thursday morning in Washington, and one leitmotif has emerged as an early favorite: noting that President Obama likes to use a teleprompter when delivering a speech. It was mentioned by David Keene, the head of the American Conservative Union, in his introductory remarks; by Stephen Baldwin, of the famous Baldwin brothers, as part of an attack on Mr. Obama; and by Marco Rubio, the Tea Party-backed candidate who is challenging Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican senatorial nomination in Florida. Mr. Rubio is clearly a star of the gathering here.
He offered a riff on why it was such a good thing that Washington was shut down by a snowstorm last week. “And the president couldn’t find anywhere to set up a teleprompter to announce new taxes,” he said to laughter.
Mr. Obama, of course, has shown that he is plenty adept at speaking with or without a teleprompter, but the ribbing speaks to a bigger point: Many conservatives here believe that Mr. Obama used his speaking abilities to sneak a big-government agenda on to a public that is in fact not really supportive of his view of the role of government.
“This time I hope Americans will expect more from their next president than the ability to give a great speech,” said Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina. “Just because you are good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to America.”
One last point: For all the carping, the speakers are standing in front of a lectern and looking at – a teleprompter.
And that prompted former Representative Dick Armey, the head of Freedom Works, to ask from the lectern: “By the way, what are these things? I always thought if you knew what you were talking about and had something in your heart to say, you didn’t need them.”
Obama Teleprompter Jokes a CPAC Favorite
CPAC Convention, Washington – At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the featured speakers have found a few surefire ways to rally the audience. Mentioning Dick Cheney, for instance, is always a crowd pleaser. The other dependable way to garner cheers is with a joke about President Obama’s use of a teleprompter.
In his highly anticipated speech today, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty bemoaned that last year it seemed, “The new era of hope and change was sweeping aside our values and principles.” Then came the punchline: It was a new era of “hope and change, and teleprompters.”
Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio, who is running as a Washington outsider, said Thursdaythat the snowstorms that recently hit Washington were a good thing because, “The president couldn’t find anywhere to set up a teleprompter to announce new taxes.”
Sen. Jim DeMint, who spoke after Rubio, said, “You can’t govern from a teleprompter.”
All of these remarks, however, were delivered with two teleprompters sitting in front of the podium.
Other speakers who made took teleprompter jabs at the president include David Keene, chair of the American Conservative Union, the actor Stephen Baldwin, RedState.com blogger Erick Erickson and conservative columnist and talk radio host Herman Cain.
If you can bear one more teleprompter aside.
THE SAD TELEPROMPTER JOKE…. Appearing at CPAC yesterday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) demonstrated the far-right’s dry and sophisticated wit, while showing his own attention to detail.
“President Obama was in a grade school classroom speaking to elementary school children and he was using a teleprompter,” Pawlenty said Friday in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he added. “That’s not a joke. That’s a real story.”
Actually, it’s not. The tale spread by bloggers over the Internet and in some media, including the Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart, blended together two Obama appearances Jan. 19 at the Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia, to make it appear he used the teleprompter when speaking to a classroom of 30 pupils.
In reality, Obama sat on a chair and spoke with the pupils without the device.
OK, so Tim Pawlenty doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That’s hardly new.
But the fact that the right is still obsessed with this — often telling teleprompter jokes while literally reading from teleprompters – has quickly transitioned from odd to sad to pathetic.
All modern presidents have used teleprompters to deliver speeches. It’s never been noteworthy, better yet “controversial,” until today’s right-wing GOP decided it’s hilarious – so much so that, as Pawlenty demonstrated, they’re willing to lie about it.
It’s worth pondering what, exactly, Republicans hope to accomplish with this. Apparently, the far-right thinks it can convince Americans that President Obama is, what, not as brilliant as he seems? The party that revels in anti-intellectualism and makes heroes of obvious dim-bulbs like Bush and Palin seriously believes the president is dependent on a prepared text to tell him what to say?
These clowns aren’t concerned with details like reality, but Barack Obama has been on the national stage for several years now. He’s spoken eloquently and intelligently — without notes or teleprompters — in debates, town-hall forums, media interviews, Q&As, and assorted appearances. Obama off the cuff is more cerebral than any figure in modern Republican politics.
I’d hoped we saw the end of this inanity a few weeks ago in Baltimore. House Republicans asked Obama what they thought to be really difficult questions. Perhaps believing their own nonsense about teleprompters, GOP lawmakers thought they’d show the president a thing or two. Instead, he made them look ridiculous, demonstrating a mastery of policy details and depth that they couldn’t hope to match.
These folks have to realize eventually that to attack the president credibly, they’ll have to do better than this.
CAN YOU BEAR ANOTHER ONE?
Letterman Makes Teleprompter Joke!
Update: Obama Without Teleprompter? Nope — He Had a Huge TelePromTV Screen In the Back of the Room
…defending Obama, and making the joke at Bush’s expense.
Nothing funny about Obama — why, comedians even expressly repudiate any jokes tossed into their wheelhouse.
Letterman’s point, to the extent he has one, is that Obama should be given slack on his teleprompter addiction — after all, he just wants to “get the words right.” Then he contrasts Obama with a teleprompter to Bushwithout one. Audience laughs. Ha, ha, ha.
Of course, if he wanted to do the with teleprompter/without teleprompter joke, he could have just used Uhh-bama’s stumbles, eh? Like the embarrassing moments tucked into this video.
Nothing funny about this president. Nothing.
So, if you want to see it, here it is:
Critics say Obama relies too heavily on his teleprompter. As Politico notes:
“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.”
They make an interesting point, why would a president want to be prepared and careful about what he says? The guy who had the job for the last eight years didn’t need no stinkin’ teleprompter!
Well, David Letterman addressed the outrage last night with his segment ‘Teleprompter Vs. No Teleprompter.’ It was enlightening to say the least.
I ADMIRE JOHN RIDLEY – SO HERE IS HIS TAKE:
John Ridley
Emmy-Winning Commentator and Writer for Esquire
The meme going around like a bad cold is that President Obama relies “too much” on teleprompters. A line so oft repeated it’s officially reached the point of late-nite pop culture status.
What makes this kind of nontroversial attack slick is that, different from easily proved instances of excessive use like “too much” Old Spice, the “too much” teleprompter tag is, of course, an empty accusation. There’s no universally accepted measure for the appropriate amount of political telepromptering, which makes it difficult to do the practical math.
Difficult but not impossible.
The most accurate way to measure the president’s teleprompteriness is by comparison of his first 66 days in office with those of his immediate predecessor. Reviewing archived video on C-SPAN and exempting such must-have prompter moments as their inaugural and State of the Union addresses, the empirical evidence is that compared to President Bush, President Obama is indeed teleprompter-dependent. Jan. 23rd, 2001: Bush unveils his education plan — no teleprompter; Feb. 26th, 2001: Bush addresses the Nation’s Governors — no teleprompter; March 19th, 2001: Bush addresses the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce — no teleprompter.
A sampling, but you get the picture.
However…
Not being teleprompter-dependent isn’t the same as being prompter-independent. As to be expected, in those addresses and others President Bush read from prepared text. No big deal and not much different than reading prepared text from a teleprompter. For those who have never actually used one, a teleprompter isn’t some kind of science-is-magic communication genie. Merely having words projected before you does not give one the ability to speak those words with additional weight or emotion.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Jindal.
So, maybe the better comparison isn’t how much time a president spends reading from a prompter — any prompter — but how much time he spends speaking to a national audience extemporaneously. Thus far, President Obama has held as many solo press conferences as former President Bush over a similar time period — two. Bush’s having been on February 22nd, 2001 and March 29th, 2001. However, both of President Obama’s press conferences have been during prime time with more viewers watching him work without a net. Bush didn’t hold his first prime-timer until October 11th, 2001. President Obama has also held town hall meetings in Elkhart, IN, Fort Myers, FL, two in California, in addition to appearing prompter-free (for better or worse) on the Tonight Show as well as holding a virtual town hall meeting on the internet.
All that is to say: compared to President Bush, President Obama is actually more likely to do “too little” telepromptering during “too many” Q&A sessions before “too many” people.
And while phrases may deceive, numbers don’t lie.
That’s it for now – no more teleprompter anecdotes.
Related posts:
- Obama Not the First President to Use Teleprompter, Just the First to Do it Well
- Presidential Teleprompter Rentals
- Obama TelePrompter Critics
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