Yikes, I feel like I’m some kind of Bizzaro world here, where nobody realises that teleprompters have been used for, um, eons. Like I said, it’s just a tool, a prompter, written words, not a mesmer box that whizzes words into an empty mind. Sheesh.
On preview, here’s Macgiver, begrudging a school visit. Heaven forbid the President encourage children.
He wasn’t using a teleprompter; he was monitoring the SDMB so as not to miss Vinyl Turnip’s latest wisecrack.
No-Bush got chewed up and spat out because, far too often, he spoke without a script.
And before you say “cite?”, decide whether or not you want this thread to have a five page hijack. 
That’s right! Bush doesn’t need any help to look like an idiot.
well i wasnt going to come out and say it
Much like all the Republicans in the country laughed at and made fun of gaffes and even minor errors like “potatoe” on the part of Republican leaders?
Tell me another one. :dubious:
Little known fact, this famous photo was cropped to hide a teleprompter.
Sorry, it appears to have scrolled up off my screen. Could you say it again?
My God! This exposes him as a Moslem fraud!
…ffs, try to find some outrage over something substantial
You know, having a teleprompter there is pretty much like having the Secret Service guy there. Just because he’s there, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you need him there. Obama’s at an elementary school. It’s pretty unlikely that anyone there is going to try to kill him. But since he’s the President, you send the SS guys, just in case. Same deal with the teleprompter. It’s pretty unlikely that Obama would screw up a simple speech like this. But since he’s the President, you set up the teleprompter, just in case.
Still, having made the comparison, I now can’t help wondering how long it is until we hear, “Obama’s so paranoid, he has elite armed guards follow him everywhere!” To be followed, no doubt, by, “And he calls them the SS! Just like Hitler!”
You’ve read the real explanation of this, right? He talked to the school kids in one room with no teleprompter, then moved into another room full of press to make a speech about education. Other photos and videos have been released which demonstrate this to be the case.
Missed the edit window.
Explanation
I love it when the anti-Obama squad makes hay over stuff like this. All it shows is that they don’t have any real, legitimate gripes, and instead have to make shit like this up.
A doctor walks into a bank to cash an enormous check that he earned from treating patients whose lives have been ruined by exorbitant health care bills. When notified by a bank teller that he’s attempting to endorse the check with a thermometer contaminated by fecal matter, he quips “if I have this stinking, shit-smeared thermometer, then I must’ve mistakenly left my Mont Blanc in a patient’s rectum. God, I hope I’m not sued for malpractice again.” Then the teller lends the doctor her pen and they both have a good laugh. EXEUNT OMNES.
Haven’t read through the thread, but from what I was reading earlier the teleprompter was for a press interview, not while he was speaking to the kids. There are pictures of him basically sitting around (sans teleprompter) while talking to the kids, then standing up by the podium when he later (or before, I mis-remember) when giving his conference.
Basically, the OP is non-sense on par with the billy goat story from the Bush era…or perhaps a bit sillier, since Bush was a lot bigger and easier a target. 
(apologies if this has already been answered, just skimming thread with the phone and haven’t read through this one except the OP)
-XT
You know, I don’t really care. I’d much rather hear a teleprompted Obama speech than ANY of Bush’s speeches, teleprompted or not.
Yah, that’s what we’re paying him for, to run around the country giving inspirational speeches to little kids. Go team Obama. If he could just play a fiddle while the country is fiscally burning to the ground that would be perfect.
In the mean time how many schools are left for him to rescue from this national crisis of encouragement? Won’t someone think of the children?
Didn’t your guy wait around to find out what would happen to a fictional goat while America was literally under attack?
It WAS a pretty fascinating story, especially when read upside-down…
-XT
Aside from the fact that this turned out to be untrue (surprise!)…
His handlers aren’t making decisions like that for him. If he wants to speak off the cuff nobody is going to force him to use a TelePrompTer.
Completely false comparison. Even when Bush was reading from a script, he was generally terrible. His delivery was awkward but the stuff on the printed page was also weak. And the speeches that won Obama praise were all scripted. Did anybody think the 2004 DNC speech was improvised? And if they did, why did they think so? Nobody sold this as an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway, for crying out loud.
It’s true that Bill Clinton, for example, often went off script. It demonstrated his command of the issues but it also showcased his tendency to show off and to go on and on forever.
This is correct.
I don’t think this is, though. 
