You know, DS and I have talked a LOT about this. It is obvious that with all the partying, in bed after midnight most nights, and jetting across the country that Obama is NOT running the country. Obama can't take questions from the press as he might be asked something he can't answer without clearance and the approved answer from his handlers. It appears that Rahm Emanuel is the "manager" making sure things get done, but from whom does Emanuel take his orders? It's sure not Obama, he is just the spokesman in front of the camera reading the prepared speeches given to him from above. And, the end comment of the author of this piece, well... others are wondering the same thing..who is destroying our country by pushing us into communism?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19663.html 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.
"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."
Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.
The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. " Kathy," Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled.
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.
Don't you wonder who's behind the curtain?
