Note: You might want to start at the Barack
Obama Index Page, especially
if you arrived here by using a search engine.
President Obama has never managed a business in his life. Not even so much as a hot dog stand. He
has never competently managed anything. Before becoming a Chicago politician, he worked as a
"community organizer" (big deal!) making perhaps $12,000 a year.
The left-leaning national news media have painted Barack Obama as the most intelligent person
ever to walk in the White House. This is a fabrication that is easily dismantled, using
the commentary and circumstantial evidence on this page. Personally, I doubt if there's
a Mensa membership card in Obama's pocket, because if there was, he'd be showing it off daily.
Mr. Obama strikes me as a man who should be very proud to have a triple-digit IQ... if in fact he does.
The most obvious evidence of Mr. Obama's pedestrian intellect comes from his unquestionable addiction to
the teleprompter. The man simply cannot speak a single coherent extemporaneous sentence in public.
At the very least, this shows that he is not the "greatest orator of our time" as we were led to believe in
2008.
On nearby pages:
Obama and his team are incompetent.
Bad ideas, bad decisions and poor judgment.
Obama's gaffes and blunders during the 2008 campaign.
On this page:
Obama is helpless without a teleprompter.
Barack Obama's greatly overrated intellect.
Obama is helpless without a teleprompter
If Mr. Obama is so smart, and has even a loose grasp on all the important issues of the day,
why does he need to rely on a teleprompter for every word he speaks? Can you
imagine the mocking derision we would hear from the press if the person glued to the
teleprompter was President John McCain, or President Dan Quayle, or President Ron Paul?
The next time you see Mr. Obama give a speech on television, notice that he constantly alternates
his gaze between the teleprompter on the left and the teleprompter on the right. Back and forth,
left and right, about three seconds on each side. More than likely there are notations in his
script about when to pause, when to inhale, and which words to emphasize. It's all a
façade. Without the teleprompter and a staff of speech writers, he would be just
another community organizer (i.e., troublemaker) from Chicago.
See
also "Community Organizer" — Big
Deal!
In speech ad-libs, Obama shows anti-business bias.
What happens
when Obama is off teleprompter? The texts of Barack Obama's recent speeches seem tailor-made for
softening the White House's often hostile description of American business, but the president's impromptu
additions are highlighting his efforts to subordinate business to government.
Liar,
liar: Why Obama is failing. Obama has been unable to use the Bully Pulpit.
No one pays attention to him. The vaunted Demosthenes of the campaign trail disappeared literally
upon inauguration. He hasn't been able to convince anyone of anything. He only succeeds when
he acts purely as a bully, muscling through legislation. Some say this is because he wasn't such a
great orator in the first place. He just read decently off a teleprompter and with the prompter
gone the emperor has not clothes.
Obama's
stolen teleprompter recovered, national silence averted. First, the bad news: They recovered
President Obama's teleprompter. So, anybody going to his speeches on the current Darth Vader armored bus
tour through North Carolina and Virginia is still going to get the full 22-minute monty about how he's there
to listen.
Obama is lost without a teleprompter.
[Scroll down] 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 [a former communications] 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.
Yes
He Can: Obama Spoke Without Teleprompter. Now it makes headlines when President Obama doesn't use
his trademark Teleprompter. Wrapping up his three-day bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia today, the
president stopped at a Chesterfield firehouse to promote his jobs bill. "It is great to be at Fire Station
Number 9 with some of Virginia's finest," the president said without the use of his Teleprompter.
The Editor says...
Wow, that's pretty good! It's almost as if he went to law school.
The Empty Vessel President.
Although African-American in appearance, he was raised by whites and educated in the most elite Eastern liberal
tradition, with only a thin veneer of calculated street cred imbued by his time in the south side of Chicago.
Although swept to office as the recipient of the gift of soaring rhetoric, he has been found to be as heavily
dependent on a teleprompter as any beginning mass communications student, and prone to stammering and
self-contradiction in its absence. So what's left?
He Knows, He Just Doesn't Care. Where
Clinton was a natural actor, Obama is an unnatural one. Unlike most politicians, he lacks that instinct,
because he lacks any degree of empathy. And so Obama needs extensive prep time to get his show on the road.
Without prep time and a teleprompter, the mask begins to slip and the man underneath is cold and distant
delivering a mechanical performance.
Silent signals:
In 2009 President Obama subjected the nation to 52 addresses, 158 interviews, 42 news
conferences, 23 town hall meetings and used the teleprompter 178 times. Oddly, the master of
speechifying says more by saying nothing then if every utterance that ever passed Obama's lips was pooled
into one unending communiqué.
Obama's Salary Cap.
During a two-day swing through Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, the president went off teleprompter and blundered
into another Joe the Plumber moment, that unguarded instant during the 2008 campaign in which he told a potential
small-business owner that he planned to spread the wealth around.
Aren't Late Night Comics Looking For Obama Material? Could
you imagine if Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush had used a teleprompter to answer questions during a
press conference? The late night joke writers wouldn't have let it go until the President gave in to the
merciless ridicule as he was painted as an idiot who couldn't tie his shoes without being fed instructions on
how to do it.
President Sticks to the Script,
With a Little Help. As he introduced his new choice for secretary of health and human services
in the East Room this week, President Obama turned his head from right to left, but he was not looking at the
audience. He was reading from two teleprompters strategically set up outside the tight television camera
shot.
TelePrompter
Story Shows Another Way Old Media Covers for Obama. Carol E. Lee of Politico had a short
March 5 piece about President Obama's singular inability to give a speech, even short ones, without the
crutch of a TelePrompter in front of him to prod him about what to say next. ... The Old Media puts in a
herculean effort to make sure The One still looks like he is speaking extemporaneously by working
overtime to make sure those speech prompters are NOT in the picture.
Obama's
TelePrompTer addiction: It's all President Obama haters can do to keep from slapping their heads
whenever they hear or see references to his being a master of public speaking. He's helpless without a
TelePrompTer, the critics say, and they point to the very deliberate way he often speaks, including his use of
the universal filler "umm" when he speaks extemporaneously.
Not making eye
contact with the American people. Perhaps another sign that the media is restless with the
President they helped create is this story from Politico about how Obama is never without his teleprompter.
He uses it at almost all his appearances, even when making brief announcements or when repeating themes he
has spoken on many times before.
He's
My President, But I Don't Have to Like It. Judging by the early days of his administration, I
have had to reevaluate [Obama]. He's even worse than I feared. It's been one disaster after
another. His appointments have been a series of embarrassments. His hard sell of the Pelosi-Reid
trillion dollar earmark makes him look like the worst sort of fear-monger. And, considering the fact
that he was sold to us as eloquent and a fellow who could think on his feet, his use of a teleprompter at his
press conference reminded me of the Wizard of Oz, the con man behind the curtain.
Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter.
President Barack Obama doesnŐt go anywhere without his TelePrompter. The textbook-sized panes of glass
holding the presidentŐs prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks. Resting on top of a tall, narrow
pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White HouseŐs 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 Crutch — Why
Is He So Afraid of Speaking Without a Teleprompter? Could you imagine if Ronald Reagan or George W.
Bush had used a teleprompter to answer questions during a press conference? The late night joke writers
wouldn't have let it go until the President gave in to the merciless ridicule as he was painted as an idiot
who couldn't tie his shoes without being fed instructions on how to do it.
Obama's
reliance on teleprompters. Is President Obama able to conduct a news conference without
a teleprompter? Is he is an automaton in answering questions? With all the jokes about Karl Rove
as George Bush's brain or cracks during the 1980s about Ronald Reagan supposedly being an amiable dunce,
could you imagine the reaction if either president had used a teleprompter to answer questions? The
late night joke writers wouldn't have let it go until the president gave in to the merciless ridicule as
he was painted as an idiot who couldn't tie his shoes without being fed instructions on how to do it.
The O is for Overrated. In
one area, Obama as the great communicator, a little bit of the glow is gone. For it turns out that while there is
only one O in teleprompter, without this trusted device, we might not have the Big O in the White House (apologies
to Oscar Robertson). It is now coming out (though not in the New York Times or Washington Post) two years too late,
that underlying of the gifted public speaker iconography is a machine. Our President has a dependency, and it is
not on tobacco products. The real "jones" is for a teleprompter.
Does Barack Obama Think For Himself?
Speculation is that David Axelrod is the man behind the prompter, whether it be speeches or press conference
crib notes, and if that's the case it should make us all wonder what's really happening upstairs in the
president's head. Is he really this deep thinker or is he just a bubblehead, doing what he's
told to do and say?
Obama
Thanks Himself, Irish PM Repeats Speech in Teleprompter Meltdown. Irish Prime Minister Brian
Cowen reads word for word a speech that Obama had just read from a teleprompter, while the president
apparently thanked himself for the invitation.
Teleprompter
Gaffe: President Obama Thanks Himself — Where's the Video?. I've been searching for the
video of Obama accidentally reading Irish PM Brian Cowen's speech yesterday. He even thanks himself at
the end! Apparently his teleprompter went loopy. If this were GWB, the video would be everywhere,
yet I can't find a clip on the Internet of a public press conference that took place yesterday.
The 5 biggest myths about Obama.
[#2] Obama is a great communicator. Cut away the soaring rhetoric in his speeches, and the
resulting policy statements are often vague, lawyerly and confusing. He is not plain-spoken: He
parses his language so much that a casual listener will miss important caveats. That's in part why he
uses teleprompters for routine policy statements: He chooses his words carefully, relying heavily on
ill-defined terms like "deficit reduction" (which means tax increases, rather than actual "savings") and
"combat troops" (as opposed to "all troops in harm's way").
Republicans Can't Afford to Default to Obama.
The pro-Obama media have been trying to conceal from TV audiences the fact that Obama is reading all his
speeches, even short ones given before small groups, but there are two difficulties. A teleprompter
requires Obama to turn from side to side and never make eye contact with his audience, and it's almost
impossible to get a good photograph of Obama without revealing at least a part of the teleprompter screen.
President Obama doesn't go anywhere without his teleprompter. He depends on it for every speech, even
his six-minute tribute to Abe Lincoln, simple introductions of his own Cabinet officials and informal small
gatherings. He is the first president to be so completely dependent on the teleprompter.
President
TelePrompTer® compares Model T to SUV. At a visit to at the Edison electric car factory
in California, President TelePrompTer told the employees that "A Model T got better gas mileage than
today's SUV". Not wanting to take a man of his stout reputation at his word alone, let's look at the
specs for each.
Why Obama's
Teleprompter Gaffe Tape Matters. When George W. Bush was President, the Democrats and certain
press outlets hammered every little mistake he made as evidence of him being "the dumbest President ever." ... As
of this writing, the video of the event with President Obama and Brian Cowen has not been released. By
some reports, the video shows that Obama oftentimes has no idea what is on that teleprompter before he reads it
and therefore, as he did on St. Patrick's Day, ends up doing things like thanking himself for inviting everyone
to the White House.
This is what happens when the teleprompter crutch is not available:
Obama Makes Fun of Special
Olympics on Jay Leno's Show. Here's why presidents of the United States should be wary of
going on late-night comedy shows: Toward the end of his appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show" on Thursday [3/19/2009],
President Barack Obama told host Jay Leno he's been practicing at the White House bowling alley but wasn't happy with his
score. "I bowled a 129," Obama said to laughs. "It was like Special Olympics or something."
'It's Like the Special
Olympics'. The first appearance by a sitting president on "The Tonight Show" may well end
up being the last. President Obama, in his taping with Jay Leno Thursday afternoon, attempted to yuk it
up with the funnyman, and ended up insulting the disabled.
Believe it or not, he has done worse. In an interview last year, candidate Obama (without the
benefit of a teleprompter) accidentally used the phrase, "my Muslim faith," leading to speculation (on the internet,
not on television) that he is a closet Muslim.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
Obama Continues To
Set Records For Incompetence. [Scroll down slowly] Everyone can make a stupid mistake, but this one is
especially instructive: Now you know why he has to be on teleprompter whenever possible. That's because, with
all due respect to his supporters who think he is the smartest man on the planet, when he is off the teleprompter he is
as gaffe-prone as Vice President Joe Biden. That led to a cartoonist putting Mr. Obama in bed with his wife and his
teleprompter, with the caption of Mrs. Obama saying the president should put his teleprompter away and go to bed.
Incidentally, if he is really so brilliant why can't he talk without a teleprompter?
Obama's
Teleprompter. Unfortunately, something went awry despite the teleprompter's best efforts: "All terrific
press for Orion, except that Obama kept pronouncing the company's name wrong, calling it OAR-ee-on."
The curse of the teleprompter leaves President looking
leaden. The teleprompter in the East Room on Tuesday night [3/24/2009] — not the
usual pair of glass screens reflecting text at each side of the podium but a huge scrolling TV screen facing
Mr Obama at the back of the room — had the effect of deadening the proceedings. Galloping
through the statement, Mr Obama was at his most tediously professorial and least engaging.
The Editor says...
Just as I thought. When I saw footage of Mr. Obama staring straight ahead, I suspected that the
teleprompter had been moved to the center of the room somehow.
Giant
Teleprompter Telegraphs Obama Caution. What kind of politician brings a teleprompter to a news
conference? A careful one. President Barack Obama took no chances in his second prime-time news
conference, reading a prepared statement in which he took both sides of the AIG bonus brouhaha and asked an
anxious nation for its patience. ... It was a carefully modulated statement, and Obama — relying
on a familiar crutch — read it off a flat-screen monitor perched at the back of the East Room.
Video clip:
Teleprompters Swapped for Giant TV Monitor for News
Conference. "He read that opening statement from one massive TV monitor from the back and
middle of the East Room. White House officials removed the normal glass teleprompters that usually
are positioned on both sides of the podium. That change likely a reaction to the focus on the
President's heavy use of teleprompters."
Obama stumbles without his
notes. Transcripts of prompterless Obama speeches (on the campaign trail in 2008) show
that Obama is incapable of making a coherent speech without a script.
The
Teleprompter President. It is amazing how swiftly a presidential tendency turns from
observation to joke to meme. Barack Obama — called "the most eloquent political
speaker of our time" — has become known as the teleprompter president.
Does President Obama
Need "Cue Cards?" The White House has a problem. A technical malfunction at a
St. Patrick's Day event, in no way the resident's [sic] fault, has nonetheless focused attention on what
some news organizations have called Obama's "overreliance" on the TelePrompTer. This, in and of
itself, might not be such a bad thing except that it conflicts with his reputation for being a compelling
speaker possessed of a broad command of the issues.
Obama's
War on English. When more than one word has to be produced, Barry defers to his teleprompter
to ensure rigid semantic integrity and to minimize his brain's default proclivity of generating "uhhhhhs"
and "ummmms." In a recent speech before a requisitely awed group of business leaders, the teleprompter
displayed the following gem, which The Father of the $1.2 trillion stimulus package voiced with
contemplative gravitas: "I don't like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested
in expanding government's role." ... In Barry's bizzaro world, reality in and of itself doesn't matter.
Careful choreography as Obama meets
the press. A presidential press conference is as stage-managed and tightly choreographed as a
Broadway show. ... Supremely confident as ever, the President read his opening remarks from a large
teleprompter. ... When the teleprompter faded to black it was time for questions. But there was
to be nothing random about who got the nod.
Tales
of Totus, the President's Teleprompter. Notice anything missing from Tuesday night's presidential
news conference? Those teleprompters that generated so much attention at President Obama's first
prime-time session with reporters were gone. Or actually, just out of sight. The White House
replaced the tall, thin teleprompters that were standing to Mr. Obama's right and left in the East Room a
month ago and instead set up a large screen behind the reporters — and out of the camera shot.
The Teleprompter Debate.
President Obama has been criticized for relying too much on the use of a teleprompter — you know,
those slightly tilted boat-paddle-looking devices that flank each side of the presidential podium. They're
essentially projection screens to his right and left from which he can read his speech, rather than speaking
extemporaneously or with printed notes.
TelePrompTer
101: What if I told you that the president actually isn't a very adept or versatile public
speaker. Would you believe me? Well, let me explain. There are basically four kinds of
public speaking: manuscript, memory, extemporaneous and impromptu. Speaking from a manuscript
means reading a speech. The speaker rehearses from the manuscript, which he has in front of him during
the actual delivery. Obama is primarily a manuscript speaker.
All TOTUS No POTUS. Goodness knows
we all want to get it right ... Those in the public eye, especially, wish to handcraft every syllable to put
our best foot forward, not in our mouth. That, and new technology to enable it, may explain how we
came to get the teleprompter president. ... Anyway, it's not so surprising that he makes use of
technology. It's the extent of his use. Extent, after all, is the difference between
the connoisseur and a wino, and we may have elected a man who's gone from the enabling drug of a
crackberry, to the hard stuff.
The Teleprompter
President. During the presidential campaign we were repeatedly told that Obama had superior
intellect. The public has never been privy to Obama's academic transcripts or read anything he wrote
as editor of the Harvard Law Review. Also, there has been considerable debate if Obama really wrote his
two books or if they ghostwritten for him. Obama has done little to dispel these questions. His dependence
on a teleprompter and his poor performance when speaking without one makes you wonder if he is just reading a script
like an academy award winning actor. So the question remains, is he as advertised or is he just reading a
script? And if he is just reading the script, who is behind the curtain directing the performance?
The question
that flummoxed the great orator. An example of Obama's performance level in the absence of a
teleprompter.
Obama's
12-Teleprompter Entourage Is Not Newsworthy, or Humor-worthy. On Monday, the UK's Evening
Standard, at its "This Is London" site, matter-of-factly noted the following in the final sentence of its
report about President Obama's upcoming European trip: "Accompanying the party will be a total of
500 officials including kitchen staff, 35 vehicles in all, four speech writers and 12 teleprompters."
Obama's
teleprompter commits mutiny during major science speech. Maybe President Obama's teleprompter wanted more
coverage. After all, last month it was getting a ton of media attention. Especially when the teleprompter was
retired temporarily in favor of a giant IMAX-type screen at the president's last press conference. Today,
the teleprompter broke the moratorium and got back in the news cycle.
Obama
gets ahead of prompter. President Obama's speech at the National Academy of Sciences Monday morning hit a
brief snag when Obama got ahead of his script. Laying his plan for a President's Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks — before realizing
he'd already introduced them, earlier in his speech.
The Editor says...
Here's a helpful hint I learned as a teenage disk jockey: Read the script before you go on the air.
Obama Reaches the Limits of
His Oratorical Prowess. The fact that there's even a debate underway as to who won the match-off indicates
that the public's perceptions of Barack Obama's oratorical skills have crossed the Rubicon and are diminishing.
How come? From over exposure? Too little variety of style? Or, is it that side-to-side teleprompter
swing where he talks to the scrolling mirrors? We figure Cheney wrote his own speech. Who wrote Obama's?
From
the Vast Business Mind of President Obama. TOTUS, (Teleprompter of the United States) gave a
stirring and charismatic speech today, much like it gave yesterday and the day before. In fact, I do
believe TOTUS has given speeches every day of its reign. But as the President today read from the
teleprompter, he sounded so knowledgeable as he faulted GM for not coming up with a viable restructuring plan
to avoid bankruptcy. As Mr. Obama expertly read his statements, alternating between prompters, going
back and forth so as to give the impression that he's addressing the audience in a truly inclusive manner...
If
a Teleprompter Falls in the White House Does It Make a Sound? Midway through his speech on urban
and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon [7/13/2009], one of his two
small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. ... 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.
A
dandy speech — if truth doesn't matter. This was the speech of an ideologue posing
as a pragmatist. Of course, it was an able and spirited performance. Obama with a TelePrompTer is
like Yo-Yo Ma with a cello.
The Gaffe Czar. The fact
that Obama can't survive two minutes without a teleprompter doesn't matter. It only matters that he
dazzles — and that he's liberal. That, in truth, is the key. Ronald Reagan, after all,
could dazzle. But he was a conservative. Because he used his rhetorical abilities to advocate
smaller government and greater individual responsibility, the media viewed that talent as a weapon, not an
asset.
Satire:
What If Obama's
Teleprompter Failed at Valley Forge? The scene: President Obama is about to give a speech
at historic Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
Do not
deny what happened at Fort Hood. [Scroll down] President Barack Obama's display on
Thursday made my point more clearly than it usually can be made, for he turned on a dime. He assumed
the "presidential grieving tone" over the Fort Hood massacre, the moment after he'd just done an equally
scripted segment of light joking banter for the benefit of the Tribal Nations Conference he was addressing.
Millions in the television audience must have watched this incredibly cynical "quick flip." I wonder
how many noticed it? We should not allow ourselves to be moved by the cold hearts of professional
tear-jerkers because when we reward that kind of thing we help perpetuate an emotional order that is
dangerously false. We should instead be annoyed by attempts to manipulate us.
Satire / mocking derision:
Obama's teleprompter malfunctions during family dinner.
Why Is No One Laughing?
Both of these men [Obama and Biden], when untethered from their Teleprompters, are prone to gibberish.
Actually I suspect that the President's Shanghai preposterosity appeared in the text rolling down his
Teleprompter. His speechwriters are as prone to the absurd as their boss. Nonetheless, President
Obama is reputed in the media to be an orator of great gifts and anyway he is very charismatic. So
apparently the journalists are insensate as the gaffes, the howlers, the jaw-dropping exaggerations roll
forth.
This is how the great orator performs
in the absence of a teleprompter:
Passion
out of fashion for O. Responding to the attempted terror attack on an American plane in US skies,
Obama took a break from the sandy beaches and golf links of Hawaii to make his first remarks about the simple
thwarting of what were supposed to be the highest security procedures. It was three days late and Obama
mailed it in. Unaided by his trusty TelePrompTers, the president read through his statement like a
schoolkid dutifully treading through his book report.
Teleprompter
Shot of the Day: Here's Obama dropping in for a chat with his middle-class task force.
And people made fun of Reagan because of his notecards!
Obama
Uses Teleprompter To Address Sixth Graders, Media Mum. Last Tuesday, President Obama spoke to a
group of sixth graders and apparently brought his trusty teleprompter along to make sure he didn't make any
mistakes. ...
Update:
The White House confirmed to TWS that the teleprompters were used for his remarks
to the press, not with students.
The Editor says...
So what? Why does the president need a teleprompter to answer questions from reporters?
Barack's Blue Blanket.
[Scroll down slowly] Yet while verbally exuding confidence, both Obama and Linus [van Pelt] are a
paradox. Both flaunt self-perceived intellect while diametrically exhibiting a predilection to
insecurity. Linus rarely appears without a blanket tossed over one shoulder, and Barack refuses
to leave Pennsylvania Avenue without the teleprompter ... Thus far, Barry seems unaware that a United
States president setting up a teleprompter in a sixth-grade classroom is as pathetic as appearing at a
lectern while sucking a plastic nipple.
'Corpse-man':
Obama also needs a pronounce-o-prompter. Over at RealClearPolitics, they show the video of
President Obama mispronouncing the word "corpsman" this morning. It's embarrassing all on its own, but
it also makes one wonder about the story he's telling.
Video:
Obama
Mispronounces "Corpsman" At Prayer Breakfast.
Unsustainable's the new
normal. At the National Prayer Breakfast, Barack Obama singled out for praise Navy Corpsman Christian
Bouchard. Or, as the president called him, "Corpseman Bouchard." Twice. Hey, not a big deal.
Throughout his life, the commander in chief has had little contact with the military, and less interest.
TelePrompter
lets Commander-in-Chief Down as He Mispronounces 'Corpsman,' Mangles French. Surely, the White House
has someone on the staff who can teach the President how to pronounce the word "corpsman." It would also be
great if someone in media knew what a corpsman is...
This proves that Obama will read whatever comes up on the teleprompter.
Obama: You
will see 'premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent' under Obamacare. Monday in Strongsville,
Ohio, President Obama said that ObamaCare will reduce health insurance premiums by "3,000 percent." ... Just
think, America: These are the people telling us that they know best how to run 1/6 of our economy.
More proof that Obama is utterly helpless without a teleprompter:
Bret Baier: 1;
President Obama: 0. With all due respect to Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer, who didn't
acknowledge on air that their colleague bested the president, Baier clearly had Obama fumbling around and
stuttering and totally flustered. Like other young and studious-looking white guys Paul Ryan and
Eric Cantor, Baier used annoying and inconvenient facts to unveil the childish and petulant Obama that
a fawning Jurassic media has never bothered to investigate.
When Obama ad-libs, we learn what he really believes.
Obama: Stuck on Begrudge.
Off the teleprompter for a few seconds while stumping for financial reform recently in Illinois, President
Obama had this to say about money, incomes and success: "Now, what we're doing, I want to be clear, we're
not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think
at a certain point you've made enough money."
The (Not So) Great
Pretender. [Scroll down] Obama pretends to be a brilliant scholar. He successfully
accomplished this during the campaign by sticking with a cool, calm persona and shutting up when the
teleprompter was off. His acolytes in the press and Democratic Party were so eager to be conned that
they did not notice that Obama never provided any evidence of a stratospheric IQ. College transcripts
were safely locked away. The candidate started appearing nowhere without his teleprompter or glued to
his campaign staff...
Mondale:
Obama's teleprompters are 'idiot boards'. Former Vice President Walter Mondale said on CNN that
President Obama relies too much on teleprompters — which Mondale called "idiot boards" —
when speaking to the American people. In a discussion of whether Obama projects empathy in his speeches,
the 82 year-old Mondale said the president "has got to connect with the American people."
Teleprompter
to make its debut in Parliament when Obama speak. A teleprompter will be in use for the first
time in the Central Hall of [the Indian] Parliament when US President Barack Obama addresses MPs on November
eight.
Obama's Teleprompter
Embarrassment in India. The pathetic inability of Barack Obama to speak without the help of a
teleprompter will be showcased to the world's most populous democracy when the president flees the electoral
aftermath and decamps for India after the November election.
US
officials discuss teleprompter for Barack Obama. A US technical team today [11/1/2010] discussed with
Indian officials installation of a teleprompter in the Central Hall of Parliament for use by US President
Barack Obama during his address which will also mark the debut of the speaking aid in its hallowed precincts.
The US team deliberated on the teleprompter issue with officials of ministry of external affairs and the
Parliament, official sources said today.
Obama
to use teleprompter for Hindi speech. Namaste India! In all likelihood that will be
silver-tongued Barack Obama's opening line when he addresses the Indian parliament next week. ... But few in
India know that the US president always carries the teleprompter with him wherever he speaks.
More about President Obama's
big Indian junket.
Truth and Science and
Facts vs. Unwashed Hillbillies. [Scroll down] Just my unwashed observation: We have
a president who knows what our brains are hardwired to do and can describe the emotional state of an entire
country, but he can't get subject and verb to agree and pronoun and antecedent to agree in just two sentences
not read from a teleprompter. Good thing he didn't say "refudiate."
Obama: Send
more teleprompters. President Obama continues to live in a state of denial regarding the message
of the midterm elections. He stubbornly clings to the belief that his policies had nothing to do with
the historic "shellacking" the voters gave his party and instead blames the red tide on his lack of communications
skills. What a change from the 2008 campaign, when Mr. Obama was being heralded as the great orator of the
21st century. Apparently, the 2010 election was lost because Mr. Obama didn't have enough teleprompters.
Me Being President.
There is, in fact, a clear difference between the president's command of English grammar when he is ad-libbing
and when he is reading from a teleprompter. Obama's command of the language in his several books is also
at variance with his impromptu performances. It is almost as if Obama had no hand in writing his own formal
remarks and the books published under his name. ... If the president is unable to form a coherent sentence in the
absence of a teleprompter, what must his mental life be like the rest of the time? That is a troubling
thought, indeed.
Telemprompter
Inventor "Hub" Schlafly Dies. You've never heard of Hubert J. "Hub" Schlafly Jr., but
if you've seen a major political speech in the past generation, you know his work. Schlafly invented
the TelePrompTer and changed public address in America. He died April 20th in Connecticut.
President Barack Obama, is hailed by supporters as a gifted orator. But he has been lambasted by
critics for his reliance on the teleprompter. In truth, every President since Dwight D.
Eisenhower, excepting Nixon, has used one for major speeches in Congress.
The Editor says...
Yes, other presidents have used the teleprompter, but no other president has been so obviously helpless
without it. This is another example of "Bush did it too!" bias on the part of ABC News.
Obama's secret
teleprompter coach revealed. Barack Obama, the purported master orator, is spending a hundred
thousand dollars of our tax money on an outside consultant to help him with his teleprompter skills.
Perhaps last minute coaching is the reason why Sunday night's OBL speech was delayed so long. The
hundred grand comes on top of the $624,000 payroll of the White House speechwriting team, so Obama's masterful
oratory is costing us close to three quarter of million bucks a year.
The Cost of Feeding TOTUS.
So who is it that feeds all of those glowing phrases into the teleprompters and what do they get
paid for providing this service? The Washington Times has an interesting and
frequently humorous look at the men (and women) behind the curtain.
Stop It
Already — He's Not So Smart. [Scroll down] Think back to his press
conference when, recklessly venturing beyond range of a teleprompter, he described his campaign efforts
through the 57 states. If Dan Quayle had said that, people would have thrown potatoes at him.
The Chosen One.
[Scroll down] In short, Barack Obama himself is not that remarkable. He can give a rousing political
speech, of course, but that is usually not sufficient to get oneself elected president. So, since he seems to
have been reading from a teleprompter all his life, and since words certifiably his own are both few and opaque,
it is most fruitful as well as relevant for us to focus on whom and what he has been following. What
accounts for his smooth, unlikely ascent?
The Unbelievable
Brilliance Of Barack Obama. There are hundreds more examples of Obama gaffes but one has to Google
them on the Internet because the mainstream media never reported them. Yet every slip of the tongue by
Bush was deemed evidence of his stupidity. In fact, Obama has made many more slips when speaking without
his teleprompter but these are excused as merely a result of exhaustion or some other lame explanation.
Demagoguery
is not leadership, Mr. President. Does President Obama even read what is put in the teleprompter
before he delivers it?
President
Obama Opens Speech With Minute Of Unexplained Silence. President Obama took to the
podium today [8/5/2011] to talk to Americans about the White House's initiatives to help veterans get back
into the work force and what the government is doing to encourage a health economy. But before
he dove into the details, the President stood at his podium for a good minute or so in silence,
interrupting only to let the audience know that he was "just waiting, here."
When the teleprompter goes blank, Obama is stupefied.
How Stupid is Obama?
[Scroll down] Then to top it off, we have the strange incident — the latest of many
strange incidents — on Friday, August 5th, when Obama, about to give a speech, stood
staring for a full minute while evidently waiting for the Teleprompter to switch on. Under such
circumstances, the normal politician will joke, will tell a yarn or two, tease the audience, do
anything but what Obama did: stare off into space after announcing, "We're waiting."
Fallen off Olympus,
Obama stammers. Warriors live by the sword and die by the sword. Politicians live by the
speech. And they die by the speech. The most shocking thing about President Obama's political
implosion from bright supernova to deadened black hole has been the complete undoing of his ability to speak.
Remember when he was famous for speaking?
President Priss. [Scroll
down] Perhaps most illuminating are those moments when he speaks without the use of a teleprompter, which
are indeed rare. Obama uses teleprompters more than any president in history. He uses a teleprompter
for routine introductions, 12-person cabinet meetings, and speaking at an elementary school. He even
had the U.S. Air Force transport an astonishing 12 teleprompters on his trip to the U.K. It is a
disturbing spectacle to watch Obama when he goes off teleprompter. He can ramble on with a painfully
long and convoluted response to a simple question, stumble over his very own comments or mix-up the living
and the dead as he did with a pair of Medal of Honor recipients.
Three
minutes, two teleprompters. President Obama required two heavy-duty teleprompters on Monday [8/29/2011]
during a three-minute speech in which he nominated Alan Krueger to serve as chairman of his Council of Economic
Advisers. "I am very pleased to appoint Alan and I look forward to working with him," Obama said, staring
at the large, flat-screen monitor to his right, then shifting his eyes to the teleprompter on his left. "I
have nothing but confidence..."
Photo by Hayley Peterson, Washington
Examiner.
Republicans
mock Obama's teleprompter use. Picking up on a theme that has been rippling through GOP circles
for two years, Republican presidential candidates are trying to use President Obama's reliance on teleprompters
to deflate one of his biggest strengths — his oratorical skill. If Obama can't give a two-minute
speech without a screen telling him what to say, the critique goes, it's a sign that he doesn't know what he's
talking about and can't be trusted to do his job.
Who is the
Real Barack Obama? According to our President's new view of history, capitalism is a theory that has
"never worked." ... But Obama's knowledge of history is limited to what is written on his teleprompter.
Barack Obama's greatly overrated intellect
President Obama's problem is not just inexperience
or the fact that he'd rather play golf or basketball than sit in his office and make difficult decisions.
There is a lot of evidence (presented below) that he's just not terribly bright.
It goes without saying that if Barack Obama had credentials, the news media would gladly show them off
to the world. But for one reason or another, Mr. Obama has hidden his college transcripts from Occidental
College in California, Columbia College in New York, and Harvard Law School in
Massachusetts.*
No college transcripts, published records, or even contemporary newspaper announcements about his education
have been released.*
What else is he hiding? Plenty, but that's
another subject altogether.
Oh, but Barack Obama wrote two best-selling books, didn't he? I don't think so. He now faces
credible accusations of plagiarism:
Forensic analysis shows that apparently someone other than Barack Obama wrote those books.
Why do you suppose this hasn't been reported by
the news media?
Obama's SOTU
Written at 8th Grade Level for Third Straight Year. Obama's SOTU addresses have the lowest average
Flesch-Kincaid score of any modern president; Obama owns three of the six lowest-scoring addresses since FDR. ... In
Obama's own words: "My message is simple."
This is what is known as stammering.
Obama: "I, I, I,
I, I'm A Warrior For The Middle Class". "You know what? If asking a billionaire to pay their
fair of taxes. To pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare, then you know what?
I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm a warrior for the middle class. I'm happy to fight for the middle class," President
Obama said at the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati, OH.
More of the same:
Obama's Breathtaking Gall.
"The way I think about it is, you know, this is, uh, you know, a great, uh, great country that had gotten a
little soft, and you know, we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last, uh, couple of
decades. We need to get back on track."
How Political Correctness Gave America a
Con-Man President. Obama's incompetence has become so well attested, it's reached apocryphal
status. No matter what kind of imbecility is attributed to Barack, the average American would tend to
believe it. But how did this transition of perception occur? How did one so touted as a
super-competent, "messianic" mega-genius fall so utterly, so quickly? According to Occam's Razor,
the likeliest explanation is that, whatever his IQ, Barack is, on a practical, real-world level — a
staggering cretin. For example, he's never taken note of the fact that socialism and Marxism always
fail, and kill millions of the innocent along the way. How was one elected with all the fanfare of a
Heisman winner, yet be such a zero?
Obama's speeches are replete with meaningless
pap and filler.
Obama
says everything — and nothing. The most cerebral president in America's history —
yes, much smarter than Madison, Jefferson, Adams, any of the Founding Fathers, to hear the mainstream media
gush — is suddenly sounding like a community college dropout.
Was
Barack Obama smart enough to make it as an Air Force pilot? [Scroll down]
Remember, this is a previously strong supporter of Obama saying this. Not only is he now
questioning the "disquieting aspects" of the president's biography, but he is also calling into
question the accepted myth of Obama's "brilliance." Maybe now more on the left and more in the
liberal mainstream media will ask by what criterion did they elevate Obama to the level of "brilliant?"
As Westen points out, beyond Obama's "singularly unremarkable career as a law professor" — or
anything for that matter — is the very question of his actual competence. Beyond the
mandates of political correctness, how is a man who refuses to release the results of his SAT scores,
his I.Q. test, or his transcripts from Occidental college deemed "brilliant?"
Press Forgets
Obama's Anti-Intellectual 2008 Campaign. Some of the reaction to Politico's tireless
quest to find out if Democrats think Rick Perry is "dumb" centered on the fact reporters conveniently
have yet to produce President Obama's school records. That's true — and a point
worth making.
You Don't Have
To Be "Smart," Just Right. In a recent Politico piece (one that mistakes
wonkery for overall intelligence), readers are asked, Is Rick Perry dumb? ... What makes a
person dumb is repeating mistakes when all the evidence tells him to stop for his own good.
Obama Must Go. Delivering a
speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 4, 2010, President Obama twice referred to
a Navy corpsman as a "corpse-man," a solecism he had made before. Those familiar with the
president's penchant for getting things wrong would not have been surprised. After all, the
man who famously believed there are 58 states in the union, that Austrians speak "Austrian,"
that America and Islam "share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity
of all human beings," and other screamers too numerous to mention, might plausibly be expected to
misspeak whenever given the opportunity to embarrass himself. His malapropisms, however, are
not only a sign of a deeply ignorant man but also a symptom of the policy miscarriages he has
implemented since taking office — again, too numerous to mention in toto.
President Stupid. You have to be
stupid to openly declare that you want to drive the coal industry out of business when it provides half of all
the electricity the nation uses every day, but that is precisely what President Stupid's administration is
doing. You have to be stupid to declare a moratorium on drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico after
courts have twice told you to remove it. You have to be stupid to lecture the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
on how to create jobs when your economic policies have been killing them for two years. ... You have to be stupid to have spent the first two years
of Sundays playing golf and then expect people to believe you are deeply religious.
Obama
Says He's Spock Then Misuses English Language. Remember how the left always asserted that
George W. Bush was stupid? Remember how they were so thrilled to have the Obamessiah that spoke so
well, a president that was perpetually the smartest man in the room? Well, after the many stammering
TelePrompter free stump debacles during the campaign, many began to doubt this claim of his superior
intelligence. Here is another small dent in that perception.
Obama Doesn't Know the Price of an Apple.
President Obama today tried to pay for four apples with one dollar. Now, if Bush did this, can you imagine the
uproar?? ... Recognizing the error, Obama personal aide Reggie Love quickly stepped in with some more money for the fruit
seller, who had just been ripped off by the leader of the free world.
Obama's Problem as 'The Smartest
Person in the Room'. In terms of IQ, Obama is clearly not the smartest person in any room he enters.
The fact of the matter is that Obama's IQ scores have not been made public. Guesses by enthusiasts of his IQ range from
140 to 170. Obama's detractors calculate a much lower IQ.
Obama
Offends — And Doesn't Seem To Know It. It's one thing to be offensive. It's yet another
thing to be offensive, and to be clueless about it.
Community Organizer in
Chief. When Barack Obama humbled Hillary Clinton, the campaign orchestrated for him by Democratic
fixers was widely misread as a thing of genius. Because Hillary has fans who delude themselves into thinking
of her as the smartest woman in America, an influential few figured that anyone who beat her had to be
even smarter. But smooth is not the same as smart, and neither smooth nor smart should be confused
with effective. In fact, there is more evidence for saying that Obama is vindictive than for saying
he is smart, and that matters when smarts are supposed to compensate for inexperience.
Just How Smart Is Obama?
[Scroll down] As far as Barack Obama being smart as a whip goes, he has no clue in economics, nor has he any
understanding of foreign policy; he is supremely arrogant and doesn't care if it rubs people the wrong way; he
has few political skills and no administrative ability, nor does he have any desire to engage in the day-to-day
drudgery of ruling, preferring to reign instead; and he revels in the luxury of presidential perks and
delights in flaunting his excess. Other than that, he is a true genius.
How 'Brilliant' Can President Obama
Be? What and where is the proof that Obama is such a sharp fellow? The recorded evidence is
unavailable since his academic records, and test scores from three universities are sealed at his demand.
Sure, he graduated from Harvard, but so did George Bush, who earned an MBA but is still pilloried by some as
dumber than dirt. We shall have to examine Obama's performance and make our own assumptions based on
observations. [For example,] Obama selected advisers and Cabinet heads who have basically no experience
in the private sector. He relies heavily on them to tell him what to do about the sick economy.
Obama is the disgraceful fruit of the public school system.
What's
Up With All the Presidential Gaffes, Anyway? Someone who tells a crowd in Vienna that his
"Austrian" isn't very good, who tells Marines that he's pleased to speak to the "Marine Corpse," and who,
just today [6/23/2011], said he'd given the Medal of Honor to a survivor from the 10th Mountain Division,
when in fact the award was given posthumously, doesn't fit my definition of a brilliant and cultured man. ... It
tells us that the president and his trusted advisers are the products of the atrocious, politically correct
educational system that's wrecking the country in so many ways.
President Priss. He
has been called the most intelligent man ever elected president. Some believe he is literally a genius.
Obama himself "always believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to those who know him.
In spite of these claims of brilliance, close examination of his remarks indicates he is of average intellect
at best. In fact, analysis of his 2011 State of the Union address revealed his remarks were written at
8.1 grade school level, the second lowest of the 70 SOTU addresses delivered since the 1930s.
Underscoring his pedestrian intelligence are his college transcripts. He would have publicly released
them if they were in any way flattering.
Why President Obama Is
Painful to Watch. Mr. Obama makes use of awkward and unusual figures of speech. One
glaring example that I've never figured out is the title of his second book, The Audacity of Hope.
I realize it is a phrase he took from his mentor and long-time pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wherever it
came from, what in the world does it mean? It is typical of most of what Mr. Obama says. I
suppose that it was meant to sound profound, but if you think about it, it's anything but.
Is Obama
Smart? Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know.
Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type
of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama
came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and
pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory,
is stuffed with flatterers.
Early
Obama Letter Confirms Inability to Write. Not surprisingly, it confirms everything I know about
Barack Obama, the writer and thinker. ... "Since the merits of the Law Review's selection policy
has been the subject of commentary for the last three issues," wrote Obama, "I'd like to take the time
to clarify exactly how our selection process works." If Obama were as smart as a fifth-grader, he would
know, of course, that "merits ... have." Were there such a thing as a literary Darwin Award, Obama could
have won it on this on one sentence alone.
The phrases President Obama can't
do without. For all his flourish, President Barack Obama sure falls back on a few familiar
phrases.
The Editor says...
This is the same Barack Obama who was supposed to be such a great orator. At least that's what we
were told during his campaign. Why does he have such a limited vocabulary?
The dumbest thing
done by a president in living memory. You may recall that President Obama committed a diplomatic
faux pas by giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a box set of 25 American movie DVD's after Brown's gracious
gifts that included a wood carving from a ship that helped end the slave trade. But that is not the end of
the Obama administration's stupidity — not by a long shot.
The High School Valedictorian
Presidency. Listening to President Obama speak Tuesday [7/7/2009] at the New Economic School in
Moscow, it became completely clear that his intellect is greatly overrated.
Barack
Obama is dumb. Admittedly, George Bush was not the most eloquent President we've ever had, but
of course, neither is Barack Obama once he gets off his teleprompter. ... Was it George Bush who claimed that there were more than
57 states? Did Bush say he saw our "fallen heroes" in the audience during a speech? Was it
George Bush who made a racist comment about "typical white people?" Did W. spend 20 years without
complaint at a church where the pastor spouted off ignorant, anti-Semitic ideas and conspiracy theories?
Was George Bush so much of an airhead that he actually ended up "thanking himself in a speech" because
that's what his teleprompter said to do?
Know-Nothing-in-Chief.
Is President Obama an economic illiterate? Harsh as that sounds, there's growing evidence he understands little
about economics and even less about economic growth or job creation. ... The president talks as if free market
solutions are nonexistent, and in his mind they may be. Three weeks after taking office, he said only
government "has the resources to jolt our economy back into life." He hasn't retreated, in words or
policies, from that view.
Just how smart is Obama?
Comparing books attributed to Obama with known undisputed samples of his writings, [Jack] Cashill has shown
that, in fact, Obama is a crappy writer, who, despite a Harvard-educated father, a mother with a PhD,
attendance at the best private prep school in Hawaii and degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law
School, never mastered such elemental matters of grammar as the necessary agreement of verbs and nouns in a
sentence.
Rumors of a Coup.
[Scroll down] Commandant Zero is being revealed as the most inept president on record. This is in no
way hyperbole; it is a sober evaluation of the record as it exists. Fillmore, Buchanan, and even Carter
are simply not in the running here. As a schlemiel, Obama stands in a class by himself, a man who not
only can't solve problems, but can't recognize them when they appear.
The Dumbest President...
EVER! How dumb? How-many-Obamas-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-light-bulb dumb.
Obama in a rush for higher gas prices?
At Friday's news conference, President Obama tried to connect with the common man coping with rising gasoline
prices. Instead, the president left little doubt that he is clueless about cars. "You may want to buy a
fuel-efficient car," quoth Obama, "but you may not be able to afford it. And so you're stuck with the old
clunker that's getting 8 or 10 miles a gallon." Eight to 10 mpg? Which clunker would that
be? I wondered. ... You have to go back to the Carter administration years or earlier to find Obama's idea of
a gas-guzzling family car — and even that vehicle would have been a van, light truck/SUV or luxury model.
And yet he is behind the wheel of Washington's energy policy.
Barack Gaffes:
All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle
live down his fateful misspelling of "potatoe." … But what about Barack Obama? The guy's a perpetual
gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the
campaign.
Barack's Obama-isms:
The gaffes Barack Obama has committed would have crushed the typical Republican politician. But the reporters
who can't get over Dan Quayle's misspelling of "potato" have little to say about their man's slip-ups.
Barack Obama: Gaffe
machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout
the campaign: Last May, he claimed that Kansas tornadoes killed a whopping 10,000 people: "In case
you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire
town destroyed." The actual death toll: 12.
Barack Potatoe
Obama? Imagine that John McCain named a young running mate to campaign with him, and this national
rookie suggested America had 58 states, repeatedly used the wrong names for the cities he was visiting,
and honored a Memorial Day crowd by acknowledging the "fallen heroes" who were present, somehow alive and standing
in the audience. How long would it take for the national media to see another Dan Quayle caricature? … This
scenario is very real, except it isn't McCain. It's the other fellow.
Pat
Caddell On Obama: "Does This Guy Have Any Idea What He Is Doing?". After watching Obama's press
conference this morning, Democrat pollster Pat Caddell said it is time to confront the elephant in the room:
That is, the question as to whether Obama actually has any idea what he's doing. He must be talking about
the elephant in the MSNBC green room, or something, because I think everyone else has been openly wondering
about that for some time now — and we have serious doubts.
How Stupid is Obama?
It has become obvious, in a sense that cannot be denied, that Obama is a fundamentally stupid man.
He has all the equipment, all the training, would probably do well on all the tests — but it
doesn't come together and produces no worthwhile results. He knows all the buzzwords, and how to
get them across. He easily impresses crowds and onlookers so long as the questions don't get too
detailed. But he can't turn any of this into action. Everyhing he touches, without exception,
falls to pieces. He has no single political success to his record.
Does America Deserve Obama? President Obama is
a socialist and a vapid demagogue who has been educated beyond the level of his intelligence.
Purposeful inaction is a form of passive-aggressive
behavior.*
Obama
declares war on mousepads and coffee mugs in bid to trim government's excessive spending. The
President has begun a war against mousepads, coffee mugs and other commemorative items in a bid to curb unnecessary
government spending and tackle America's $14 trillion deficit. This week he signed an executive order
directing government agencies to cut back on 'extraneous promotional items', which the White House says cost
taxpayers billions of dollars a year.
The Editor says...
In the time it took President Obama to sign this executive order, the US government spent more money on
welfare entitlements and bureaucracies than it has ever spent on mouse pads, coffee mugs and trinkets.
So-Called
Electability and MSM Bias. The liberal media have never, to my knowledge, shined the spotlight on
Obama's many embarrassing gaffes. They have rarely called attention to his deceit, broken promises and policy
failures. Part of the reason is their presupposition that because he's a credentialed left-winger, he is
brilliant, and any departure from that is a mere aberration, an exception that couldn't possibly detract from
his presumptive brilliance.
Obama
blunders as he condemns attack on the 'English' Embassy in Tehran. The U.S. President has come
under fire today after referring to the 'English' instead of the British Embassy in his condemnation of the
violence that broke out at the building in Iran yesterday [11/29/2011].
Welcome to Texas!
Campaigning in Kansas today, President Obama momentarily forgot which of the 57 states he was in. But
that was just a slip of the tongue. The really dumb thing he said is that the internet is causing
unemployment. ... This is one more reminder — as if we needed it — that President
Obama has no understanding of the economy.
Obama's
thin gruel at Osawatomie. Democrats like to think of themselves as the party of smart people.
And over the last four years we have heard countless encomiums, and not just from Democrats, of the intellect and
perceptiveness of Barack Obama. But a reading of the text of Obama's December 6 speech at Osawatomie,
Kansas, billed as one of his big speeches of the year, shows him to be something like the opposite. Even
by the standards of campaign rhetoric, this is a shockingly shoddy piece of work.
The
many gaffes of Barack Hussein Obama. For much of his eight years in office, George W. Bush was
portrayed as a dope by the very media that ignored Obama's mention of "57 states." Of course, if your
name is Barack Hussein Obama (and you have a 'D' behind your name) the rules are much different. You have
been annointed "god of all things," and you have adoring fans in the media who would gladly shine your shoes
with their tongues (on camera) with a snap of the finger. Gaffes? Who cares?
Obama-isms: Dumb Quotes and Gaffes by
Barack Obama. [For example,] "The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region
for centuries." — Tampa, Fla., Jan. 28, 2010. [And] "UPS and FedEx are doing just
fine, right? It's the Post Office that's always having problems." — attempting to make the
case for government-run healthcare, while simultaneously undercutting his own argument, Portsmouth, N.H.,
Aug. 11, 2009.
'When the
Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend'. Consider. Did Obama achieve a B+ average at
Columbia? Who knows? (Who will ever know?) But even today's inflated version of yesteryear's
gentleman Cs would not normally warrant admission to Harvard Law. And once there, did the Law Review
editor publish at least one seminal article? Why not? I ask not because I particularly care about
the GPAs or certificates of the president, but only because I am searching for a shred of evidence to
substantiate this image of singular intellectual power and known erudition.
Neuter Obama. Having been
told for years of Barack Obama's brilliance, many have a visceral longing to see him destroyed in debate.
Admittedly, an opportunity to show the world the true brilliance of Obama is hard to resist.
Why
are Barack Obama's critics so smart? For all its talk of "smart power", this is a gaffe-prone
presidency that makes mistakes so elementary they are embarrassing. Instead of calling Obama's critics
"dumb", the president's supporters should be telling their own Executive Branch friends to smarten up their
act and do a bit of homework, especially when it comes their less-than-stellar knowledge of current affairs.
... And as for the myth that the current president is smarter than his Yale-educated predecessor, I don't recall
George W Bush ever referring to "the English Embassy", or incredibly describing France as America's
strongest ally.
Now We Know Who Was
Right about Obama. On intelligence, sadly, the Democrats were completely wrong. Democrats
swooned over Obama's suave self-presentation. They constantly cited his position as editor at the Harvard
Law Review as an impressive qualification to be president of the United States. (Strange, but true.)
Republicans who did their homework knew that Obama was not the first black, but only the first affirmative action
Harvard Law Review editor. He did make history at the Law Review: he was the only editor
never to write an article for the Review. Indeed, Obama has never written a law article on anything.
How Smart
Is Obama, Anyway? Race isn't the only reason Obama edged out John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
But it's the main reason why an obscure state legislator wound up in the White House before enough people noticed
he wasn't all that bright.
[Emphasis in original.]
How Obama Makes Decisions.
There seems to be a pattern of someone who wants to avoid having his intellect scrutinized (tellingly, of course,
he never completed a single work of legal scholarship). Is he fearful of revealing that he is not the grand
intellect that besotted journalists have proclaimed him to be? Is this why he is tethered to the
teleprompter? Do his handlers know something we do not? Certainly when he goes off the prompter
he says some truly ridiculous things (Hawaii is in Asia, there are 57 states in America, "spread the
wealth").
Gaffes
Senator Obama made a whole series of blunders
while campaigning for the office of President. Fortunately for him, they were
all covered up by
the left-leaning national news media.
See also Joe Biden brings his own gaffes
and baggage.
President
Gaffe's Bigger Problems. Just because Britain's largest daily newspaper has a top ten gaffe reel
assembled, and online before your presidency is barely 60 days old, you might believe that you're the
laughingstock of serious members of the world community of leaders.
Bow-ow-ow: Obama's painful
missteps. There has been one needless gaffe after another — from the president's
tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister,
followed by the sweater-clad first lady's over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the
jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia.
Second World War
history is not Barack Obama's strong suit. [Scroll down] Last May ... Mr Obama said that
his uncle "was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz". Republicans pointed out that it
was the Soviets who liberated Auschwitz. "Unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there's no way
Obama's statement can be true," a Republican spokesman said. The Democratic candidate issued a correction,
but critical historians have found earlier examples of Mr Obama's elastic approach to the facts.
Smartest President in
History Botches Oval Office Rug Quote. Woven into the new presidential seal rug adorning the
Oval Office is a misattributed quotation, offering us a perfect metaphor for the Obama presidency.
Top 10 Barack Obama Blunders.
Even beyond his disastrous policies, President Obama is turning out to be a terrible politician. The
great orator and master campaigner of 2008 is stumbling through his presidency, piling up gaffes and making
odd political moves.
President Obama Has No Idea
What Year It Is. This is how President Obama signed the guestbook at Westminster Abbey earlier
today [5/24/2011], where he got a tour from the Very Reverend Dr. John Hall and laid a wreath on the Grave of
the Unknown Warrior.
It is a great privilege to commemorate our common heritage, and common sacrifice.
Barack Obama
24 May 2008
It was really nice until he got the date wrong by three years.
British Newspaper Blasted
Bush's Etiquette Flub, but Glosses Over Obama's. Imagine the newspaper headlines if President
George W. Bush had written the wrong date in the Westminster Abbey guest book; or if he had continued
toasting the Queen of England after the British national anthem started playing. Obama did both of
those things on Tuesday, and while media outlets reported the incidents, there was no suggestion that
he is a blundering fool.
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