DEATH IN THE WHITE HOUSE

No one was injured.

Thank God.

It was truly the end of an era.

It is not clear at this time whether or not any of the news networks are planning to air any tributes, or whether or not we can expect endless hours of speculative round-table discussion as to why it happened, but don’t be surprised if a media blitz ensues. The ramifications may be somewhat murky at this early stage, but rest assured, the very best people are on it.

The soundest advice is to disregard rumor and innuendo and wait for the facts to come out.

Still, there are two questions that need to be answered before anything else.

Why did President Obama’s teleprompter fall?

And who would have stood to benefit the most?

ABC’s Sunlen Miller and Jake Tapper write:

Midway through his speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon, one of his two small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. It made quite a ruckus.

“Oh, goodness,” a startled President Obama said. “Sorry about that, guys.”

He then proceeded on with his remarks, “To pull our economy back from the brink, including the largest and most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation’s history…”

For the rest of the speech the president relied on the one remaining teleprompter, to his right, and notes on his podium to finish his speech.

Shards of glass remained near the president’s feet for the duration of his speech.

It has been confirmed through reliable White House sources that the President, in anticipation of such a tragic eventuality, committed his “Oh, goodness” response to memory, knowing that the chances of getting an emergency backup teleprompter with an appropriate reaction into the room quickly enough would be a near impossibility.

Most agree, he did well after the teleprompter’s death.

However, the “sorry about that, guys” tag was, by all accounts, a hastily constructed ad-lib.

Reaction was mixed to the impromptu line.

Congressional hearings are expected to begin after the summer recess, and a comprehensive bi-partisan report will made available to the public before Christmas, 2011.

The Vice-Prompter will step in immediately to cover the President’s left flank when speaking in public is required.

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SOME TOES CANNOT BE STEPPED ON – ASK CHIP AND HELEN

Chip Reid and Helen Thomas

No, I don’t think the love affair is over.

But perhaps the seemingly never-ending honeymoon is finally winding down.

While life itself is not (and cannot be) a pre-packaged, perfectly choreographed, script-dependant entity all done up in a pretty little bow, the current President – forever concerned with his own image, legacy and popularity – continues to take his cues from the Automaton Songbook. He conducts his business like a man who not only cannot think out of the box, but one who needs to have someone feeding him lines from it.

The Cue Card Chief Executive – the brilliant orator and thinker (as we’ve been told) whose only non-scripted efforts in recent times have been the killing of a fly on television (for which he was berated by PETA), laughing at tasteless jokes about Rush Limbaugh dying, and his procession of “uhs” and “ums” in those rare and unscripted moments when the cue card man was away – simply hasn’t the capacity to participate in a any formal public event without having every word scripted, every move blocked, every question pre-selected, every space around him filled with teleprompters, every “evil eye” glare strategically timed and every townhall meeting participant pre-screened.

From embarrassingly reading the wrong script off a dissenting teleprompter at a White House function – and not having the presence of mind to realize he was doing so – to needing his army of electronic idiot sheets all around him at even the briefest public venue (where only a quick word or two is necessary), the man who has been touted to be as quick as Kennedy, as great a communicator as Reagan, and as visionary as King is, in reality, as smooth as a sanding pad and as clueless as his own Vice President. (Unduly harsh?) His ability to think on his feet, collect his thoughts and summon the right words, as has been shown time and time again, is decidedly limited – perhaps nonexistent. “On the spot” thinking is not the President’s strong suit.

However, for all of his shortcomings, I will be fair.

There are things he knows – and quite well.

Big government is his forte. Driving a stake through the heart of liberty in the name of equality and justice is an Obama specialty. Drawing from his Marxist sensibilities, propaganda and manipulation is what he knows. It’s what he’s been taught. A protégé of the Saul Alinsky school of thought, Obama knows that his radical notions of government-controlled health-care, his unprecedented spending and government intervention in American lives must be carefully sold and crafted to sound reasonable. Every syllable must be uttered in perfect cadence. Every word must count.

The only way that is possible is to be able to control, restrain and limit the free press.

And so it was, on Wednesday, that the most magnificent press secretary ever to take the podium at the White House, Robert Gibbs, was surprisingly confronted by two of his own from the press corps. This was not a polite, pre-scripted, paddy-cake exchange between a blind main-stream-media Obamacrat and the Messiah’s spokesman. This was no staged conflict.

This was classic.

Michael Blatt from News Busters writes:

Is the press corps starting to tire of the Obama Administration?

At a press conference today (Wednesday), Helen Thomas and CBS’s Chip Reid got into it with Robert Gibbs over how the administration has been prepackaging media events.

First Reid asked why the questions for Wednesday’s town hall on healthcare were being preselected. After Gibbs tried to dodge that question a few times, Thomas became involved, saying, “We have never had that in the White House. I’m amazed that you people … call for openness and transparency.”

Thomas said that the administration was trying to control the media, and she pointed out how they coordinated questions with the Huffington Post at a press conference.

Indeed, I diligently checked the news wires, combed through endless weather reports and even managed to listen to the “top of the hour” news reports on the radio, and I could not find any reports of dramatic temperature drops in hell.

Blatt continues:

Thomas is not the first journalist to question the White House’s coordination with the Huffington Post. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank also took the White House to task for the coordination.

Wednesday’s press conference was also not the only media event that was in some way coordinated. Previous town halls have featured Obama campaign supporters and Democratic politicians lobbing softballs at Obama.

As Thomas noted, “[Obama’s] formal engagements are prepackaged.”

After Gibbs continued to dodge questions, Thomas said, “Of course you would, because you don’t have any answers.”

Before the exchange ended, Reid asked Gibbs to pass along this question to Obama: “Is he going to support a tax increase on the middle class?”

Afterwards, Thomas told CNS News that Obama’s grip on the media is even greater than that of Richard Nixon.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that. They couldn’t control [the media]. They didn’t try that. What the hell do they think we are, puppets? They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them. … I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well–for the town halls, for the press conferences. It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

How about that?

My fingertips may actually detach themselves from the rest of my hand in revolt for typing this – and I may have to rub my eyes more than a couple dozen times to make sure that I have actually posted these words on my blog – but “Good for you, Helen Thomas!”

(Checking to make sure the world is still here).

As Eric at the great Vocal Minority website writes:

Why would two notoriously liberal establishment journalists suddenly turn on an administration they’ve heretofore been cheerleading for? My guess is it’s an ego/pride thing. The rigging of the Huffington Post “reporter” by the Obama team must have infuriated professionals like Thomas and Reid. And if there’s one thing you don’t want to do, it’s upset a news media type with a holier-than-thou complex.

Indeed, it goes without saying that the vast majority of the mainstream media has been in bed with President Obama since the moment he stepped forward from his blockbusting two years in the US Senate to become The One. He has done no wrong in their eyes – and it is reflected in the pages of their magazines and newspapers and in their broadcats. While never missing the opportunity to brand George W. Bush everything from a hayseed to a war criminal, the Messiah’s transforming blitzkrieg on American individualism, free market principals and liberty has brought very little in the way of hard criticisms from the lock-step fourth estate. They have done all they can to shamelessly promote and defend his intrusive big government policies while (unsuccessfully) attempting to maintain the veneer of impartiality.

However, media types don’t like being told what to do, how to do it and where it can be done – not even drooling, orgasmic Obamacrats.

Bam had best watch his step.

Media toes do not like being trod upon, even if the feet doing the smashing can walk on water.

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TWO MEN AND A TELEPROMPTER

If ever there was a “Boy, if this happened to George W. Bush …” moment in the two months since Barack Obama became President, it would have to be Tuesday’s St. Patrick’s Day display of Messianic moonbattery at the White House.

Let’s be clear.

Had this happened on “W’s” watch, there would have been an immediate call to action to all Lefty laptop rat-a-tat-tatters in basements across the map to let the word go forth. TV talk-show monologue makers would be thanking the gods for such a fruitful bounty. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC would have spent at least twenty minutes on it on her sparingly watched television program. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC might have been forced into an orgasmically-induced change of undergarments had the Cowboy President done such a thing. It might have even warranted two columns on the New York Times front page (I’ll give you below the fold).

President Obama hosted Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowan at the White House yesterday in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

Both men appeared before the press.

After a teleprompted address by the President, Mr. Cowan started his remarks, also teleprompted. However, after a paragraph or two it was evident that something wasn’t quite right with the Prime Minister’s statement.

Then it became obvious.

Prime Minister Cowan was reading the wrong statement.

There was apparently a teleprompter boo-boo and he wound up re-reading Obama’s remarks, given just a few moments earlier. Cowan caught the error, turned the President and said, “That’s your speech.”

It was fairly embarrassing – a teleprompter teleproblem .

After a chuckle, Obama returned to center-stage, presumably to play the role of Messiah and save the day.

It was, by all accounts, a situation tailor-made for Obama. Here was an opportunity for the grand orator himself – the greatest rhetorician, perhaps, since Roosevelt – to step into his element and salvage what could only be described as amateur hour at the White House. If anyone could, he could rescue the moment. Here was what so many had been waiting for – to hear America’s most eloquent elocutionist step up to the plate and show why he is The One. Who else but he in all of Creation could deliver on an occasion as awkward as this?

Obama proceeded to speak – but to the mild surprise (and disappointment) of some, he was reading off the teleprompter again. It was odd – particularly because here was a man touted as the anti-Bush, in terms of articulation, standing there with a chance to show why he was so good, but didn’t. Or couldn’t.

To be fair, maybe the right “ad-libs” didn’t immediately come to mind.

Still, he sounded fine, doing his best to move past the teleprompting flub … that is, until it was apparent that what he was reading off the electronic cue-cards was wrong. Really wrong.

He was actually reading the statement Prime Minister Cowan was supposed to deliver a moment earlier.

The faux par became perfectly clear when the President thanked himself for the invitation to the White House.

(It simply isn’t possible to make this stuff up).

How long do you think it would have taken, had he not expressed his undying gratitude to himself, before he realized he was speaking words that really made no sense coming from the American President? Is Obama so teleprocessed that he has no ability to comprehend what he is saying? The President certainly reviews what he is going to say at any public venue before hand. Did it not occur to him that what he was reading was not familiar? Or if it was, that it wasn’t meant for him? Maybe he just misremembered.

Does Michelle wind him up for the question period?

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PRESIDENT “UH”-BAMA

Just imagine how busy the sketch writers at Saturday Night Live would be had a story been published about President George W. Bush and his army of traveling teleprompters. The mind boggles trying to comprehend how much would be made on the late-night talk show circuit of Bush needing to have his electronic cue cards at almost every public venue that required him to speak. From Jon Stewart to Bill Maher – and all stops in between – America would never hear the end of it.

However, if one were to take the name George W. Bush and replace it with Barack H. Obama, the question is whether America would ever hear the beginning of it. (Insert your educated guess here).

While there is no correlation between one’s competence as an orator and one’s ability to speak publicly without a script or without prompting, the idea that a man who is touted for being such a dynamic speaker can only be so when he has something to read from is, to say the least, worth noting, don’t you think?

Carol E. Lee from The Politico writes:

President Barack Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter.

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.

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.

Those who have remarked (conservative commentators almost exclusively) that president Obama often times seems to be searching for words when he is off-script have been ridiculed and accused of seeking retaliation for all of the attacks on the less-than-dynamic speaking skills of George W. Bush.

However, what is becoming clear is that President Obama, while often dynamite with a script, isn’t particular good “out of the box” – like, say, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton were.

After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in Hawaii. But no such luck.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the Grand Foyer.

…

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he’s been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

Interesting to point out is the contrast between President Obama and former President Bush.

By most accounts – from both sides of the aisle, mind you – President Bush spoke wonderfully off-script and off-camera. When he was unrehearsed, speaking from the heart, discussing matters he was not only passionate about but well-read on, he was a more-than-competent speaker. However, when he spoke from teleprompters or was rigidly scripted, he wasn’t quite as good.

The opposite seems to hold true for President Obama. When following the teleprompter, he is very good – some would say great. When he is left to fend for himself, however, he often seems to be thumbing through his mental rolodex trying to find the right number.

The point?

The cocooning of President Obama continues from all prcatically all sectors of the mainstream media.  This story would have been an Anderson Cooper three-part expose by now had this been a Republican needing to suckle at the teet of technology in order to communicate.

In other news, a new college drinking game could be on the horizon – fashioned after the old “Hi Bob” contest, in which people would watch the old Bob Newhart Show and down a shot everytime one of the characters said “Hi Bob.”

This new excursion into campus idiocy might be called the “Uh-bama” drinking game.

The premise is simple.

Record an Obama event that is not a fully scripted speech (if you can find one), and have the particpants in the game take a shot everytime the President says “uh.”

The game would be over in about seven minutes.

The net effect?

More hangovers means less leftist indoctrination at our universities.

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