The Great ZerO-Rator

The biggest myth to come out of the 2008 presidential campaign, besides Barack Obama himself, is that his bright, clean, “articulateness” makes him an O-rator Extraordinaire.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The man is so inept as a speaker that he has to take a TelePrompTer into the shower to read a Cardboard Titty Groper-written request in case he runs out of shampoo.  When off TelePrompTer, he bumbles, stumbles, mumbles, “ums,” “ahhhs,” and “ya knows” his way through incomprehensible moot points to their largely illogical conclusions.  Not only is he not even passable as a public speaker, he is a barely competent public reader.  His squinty-eyed, nose-in-the-air, head-swiveling is enough to give a person watching whiplash.  That such inadequate performances as are his stock-in-trade have become celebrated examples of oratorical superiority is more of a testament to the determined application of the “skill” of the pervasive, sycophantic, Axelrod-extorted, ego-stroked, so-called mainstream media and  blogosphere, recruited by the President’s Puppeteer to do his bidding, than to the “talent” of the Spokesmodel-in-Chief.  In other words, as a public speaker, Obama sucks.

Dean Barnett, writing for the Weekly Standard, got on to Obama’s “secret” lack of inherent verbal ability after witnessing  the Teflon TelePrompTer Reader performing in Virginia, sans crutch, in February of last year:

Shorn of his Teleprompter, we saw a different Obama. His delivery was halting and unsure. He looked down at his obviously copious notes every few seconds throughout the speech. Unlike the typical Obama oration where the words flow with unparalleled fluidity, he stumbled over his phrasing repeatedly.

Being Teflon, Obama’s inept speechifying wasn’t enough to cause even the conservative Barnett to overly critique his performance based on his all too obvious lack of speaking skills, it was the fact that when off-script, Obama reveals much more of his true personality than friend or foe would be comfortable with:

What makes Obama’s Jefferson-Jackson speech especially relevant is where he went when he went off script. The unifying Obama who has impressed so many people during this campaign season vanished, replaced by just another angry liberal railing against George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Exxon Mobil, and other long standing Democratic piñatas. The pressing question that Obama’s decidedly uninspiring Jefferson-Jackson oratory raises is which Obama is the real Obama–the one who read beautifully crafted words from a Teleprompter after his victory in Iowa, or the tediously angry liberal who improvised in Virginia?

With his Biden-esque tendency to gaffe (it’s a verb) about his Muslim faith in all 57 states, Knucklehead Smiff’s Shari Lewis (yeah, I know) realized the extent of the risk involved with continuing to allow his Frankenstienian creation  loose on the campaign trail TelePrompTer-less, so the Puppet Master took the unprecedented step of sending Marble Mouth’s best friend on the road with him.  From CNN, September, 2008:

It appears Barack Obama’s teleprompter is hitting the campaign trail.

The Democratic presidential nominee has never tried to hide the fact he delivers speeches off the device, though normally he doesn’t use one at standard campaign rallies and town hall events.

But the Illinois senator used a teleprompter at both his Colorado events Monday — making for a particularly peculiar scene in Pueblo, where the prompter was set up in the middle of what is normally a rodeo ring.

Now, according to the American Spectator, the Obamessiah’s performance was so lacking in his first press conference as president since the training wheels came off, even with his trusty prop, that Papa Smurf’n'Astroturf has patenalisticly provided his pride and joy with a podium mounted ‘PrompTer, so he’ll never have to speak alone:

To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. “It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it,” says the adviser.

The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.

Using a screen is nothing new for Obama; almost nothing he said in supposedly unscripted townhall events during the presidential campaign was unscripted, down to many of the questions and the answers to those questions. Teleprompter screens at the events scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and information he could use to answer questions.

The folks at SGW Teleprompter Solutions give many examples of services they offer, but, so far, no in-podium mounts.  I wonder how long it will take the Obamaster to get the hang of using his new toy, since he’s barely gotten the hang of using the old one in the five years he’s had to adapt to it.  Yep, according to this Chicago Magazine June, 2007 behind-the-scenes profile of Obuhbuh’s 2004 rock ‘em, sock ‘em reading debut at the Democratic National Convention, that was the first time he’d used one:

Obama, who prefers speaking extemporaneously, had no experience working with a teleprompter or addressing a group this loud and lively. Michael Sheehan, a Washington speech coach who advised Obama, says the prime-time convention speeches are “unexpectedly hard for several reasons: The noise is overwhelming, and on top of it, you’re speaking to three audiences at a time: the live audience; the big JumboTron in the convention hall; and to the TV cameras. It’s a juggling act.”

Obama struggled early on to master the mechanics of this new speaking environment. First, he had to train himself to read the words off the teleprompter screens without having it look or sound as if he were reading. He also had to adjust his speaking style. “There’s this impulse with these big, live speeches to orate as if you’re on a podium in the town square,” says Axelrod. “When you’re giving these speeches, you’re speaking not just to the crowd but primarily to a TV audience, and the microphone does all the work for you, so you don’t need to bellow.”

Good thing Big Daddy Axelrove was there to hold the handlebars as he took his maiden ride around the national political block, huh?  I guess when you’re the first black Charlie McCarthy in the White House, it must be a tremendous comfort to know that the Candice Bergen’s dad hand up your back is only a glance left, down, and to the right away.

Like a lot of folks, I’ve had fun skewering That One’s prompter dependence in the past, and look forward to many more happy blogging hours in the future.  ‘Til then, the wheels on the bus…