Obama Goes Off Prompter

For such a supposedly fantastic speaker, it's sure hard to bring to mind any outstanding Obama quotes. I remember nothing from his big post-racial race speech, his inaugural, his state of the union addresses. What I remember is when he goes off teleprompter.

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?"

"I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go."

"The private sector is doing fine."

"At a certain point, you've made enough money."

"The Cambridge police acted stupidly."

"I bowled a 129. It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something."

"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

"We're the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad."

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

"You didn't build that."

So this, to me, is great news:

President Obama is weaning himself off his teleprompter.

At recent campaign events in Pennsylvania, Virginia and again Monday in Ohio, Obama spoke to crowds in high school gymnasiums and at crowded outdoor events without his teleprompter, instead using written notes.

The difference is dramatic. Instead of turning in his characteristic manner from right to left and back again, reading from the two sloping, clear-plastic planes of his teleprompter, Obama has glanced down at pages in a binder on his podium.

I have to believe that the writer wrote that "difference is dramatic" paragraph with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Instead of wagging his head back and forth, he bobs it up and down? Shyeah, dramatic.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 10:28 AM

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