Breaking: Obama uses teleprompter

The great teleprompter debate has begun!

Politico's Carol Lee is offended by their use.

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.

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.

“It’s just something presidents haven’t done,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. “It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter.”

As an aside, who is Martha Joynt Kumar and how has she managed to "hold court in the White House since December 1975?" Not just 1975, but December 1975. Well, color me fascinated.

But I digress.

The Times' Peter Baker thinks it's all about "message discipline."

For Mr. Obama, a teleprompter means message discipline, sticking close to his intended words. Every president uses prepared remarks, of course, often reading from paper or note cards. But while some of his predecessors liked to extemporize, Mr. Obama prefers the message to be just so. After all, he is a bestselling author who has had a hand in writing many of his major speeches, so his aides say he feels a certain fidelity to the crafted text.

Michael Waldman, who was President Bill Clinton’s chief speechwriter, said Mr. Obama is one of the few politicians who is able to use a teleprompter effectively. “If he were just reading something someone handed him, and didn’t understand what it said, that would be one thing,” Mr. Waldman said. “But I don’t think anybody doubts that he’s expressing his own thoughts.”

Yet Bradley A. Blakeman, a former White House aide to President George W. Bush and a Republican strategist, said the teleprompter makes Mr. Obama look robotic. “He is extremely scripted, and he is cautious to the max and afraid of gaffes,” Mr. Blakeman said. When answering questions without a script, Mr. Blakeman said, “his speech is very halted, and you can see him take a lot of time to think about what he’s going to say.”

Because we don't want our presidents thinking about what they are going to say.

Oddly, the photo just below Baker's article in the wood pulp edition of the "paper" showed Obama at the health care forum at a podium without a teleprompter. What fucking gives?

Apparently, this has been bubbling around the wingnutosphere for some time. Glad it's finally getting the attention it so richly does not deserve.