The following post by DougJ @ Balloon Juice (Drudge rules their world) wherein White House Press Secretary Gibbs is quoted discussing the mini-brouhaha that is bouncing around about Obama’s usage of the Teleprompter reminded me that I have been meaning to post my pet theory about the meme in question.

The Meme in Question. First, what am I talking about?¹ Well, it goes something like this: President Obama isn’t really the smooth communicator that so many of you out there think that he, because he likes to use a teleprompter! Indeed, what would he do without one? Odds are, he couldn’t even speak! Some say that he is reduced to a sobbing heap with it!

This is a favorite over at Power Line. For example, on March 23, John Hinderaker² wrote:

Everyone knows that Barack Obama is lost without his teleprompter, but his latest blunder, courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via the Corner, suggests that the teleprompter may not be enough unless it includes phonetic spellings. Obama was speaking at a White House roundtable on clean energy systems, and repeatedly saluted Orion Energy Systems, whose CEO, Neal Verfuerth, was present at the event. So Obama referred to “Orion” a number of times. Only problem was, he appeared to be unfamiliar with the word:

All terrific press for Orion, except that Obama kept pronouncing the company’s name wrong, calling it OAR-ee-on.

Unbelievable. Orion is one of the best-known constellations, mostly because it actually looks like its namesake. So evidently we have to add astronomy to history and economics as subjects of which Obama is remarkably ignorant. I’m beginning to fear that our President has below-average knowledge of the world. Not for a President, but for a middle-aged American.

On the 18th, Scott Johnson posted:Why Obama thanked himself

Despite the jocular tone of the AP report, a Teleprompter meltdown in Obama’s White House is no laughing matter.

Yes, the horror.

Mark Steyn, blogging at the Corner wrote about the incident:

Is the Teleprompter really the brains of the operation? And, if so, why hasn’t it nominated a new Deputy Treasury Secretary?

Another example: Kim Priestap at Wizbang:

This is why Obama brings a teleprompter with him everywhere he speaks, even at a rodeo. If he doesn’t have the words scrolling in front of him, he collapses:

And, of course, Rush Limbaugh: Off Prompter, Obama Can’t Speak.

The Theory. This is all a rather transparent attempt to take what was an obvious foible of the previous president, i.e., his rather obvious lack of fluidity with the English language³ especially when speaking extemporaneously, and say: see! Obama can’t do it either!

Now, this is, of course, patently silly. Obama is an objectively good speaker and speaks quite well off the cuff. He does have his own cadence, which one could make fun of, I suppose, but the notion that he can’t manage without a teleprompter is just asinine.

I suppose that it could also be simply trying to tear down an obvious asset that the President has, but I can’t help but think that there is a linkage back to Bush and the slings and arrows he suffered over his locution.

In response the whole thing, I am with James Fallows, who wrote the other day:

The whole “Obama can’t talk on his own” concept is bizarre, given his performance through two years of stump speeches and debates during the campaign. But it seems to have gotten so much credence in the right-wing world that it is worth addressing head on.

Conclusion. Politicians and candidates often find certain aspects of their personality, speech pattern or personal history become caricatured and those traits become sources of comedy and sometimes of political attack. This works better for some than others. Consider the following (very partial) list:

Gerald Ford: a klutz (thanks to his own falling down the stairs of Air Force One and trying to eat a tamale with the husk on, among other things, and being portrayed as a bumbler on SNL by Chevy Chase).

Dan Quayle: a dummy (thanks to a number of things, probably most famously, “potatoe”).

Bill Clinton: sexaholic and hyperparser of words (does that really need explanation?)

Al Gore: maker-up of stories to self-promote (most famous, the line about inventing the internet).

One could name others, but these are easy and obvious examples.

Now, two things have to be noted.

One, the caricatures are just that: overblown (well, except maybe Clinton…) and supporters of the given politician, or even a fair-minded observer, could point out where they are inaccurate. However, once a politician is identified in such a manner, it is impossible to totally shake the image from the public’s consciousness.

Two, it is always a mistake for the partisans of a given politician who has been caricatured to try and do the ol’ switcheroo and try and use the same description on someone of the other party. For example, I recall back in the early 1990s, right after the election in ’92, and Rush Limbaugh was pointing out how Al Gore asked who the busts of Washington, Franklin and Lafayette were at a tour of Monticello.⁴ Limbaugh said something to the effect of “can you imagine if Dan Quayle had said something like that?” And, of course, the answer is that Quayle would have been made fun of, because the template was already in place about Quayle. Of course, Gore developed his own template over time (one of being somewhat pompous) and hence his sighing at the first Bush-Gore debate did him great harm–more harm than another sighing politician would have received.

Back to the basic point, if one has to say “can you imagine what would’ve happened if X had done/said that?” then one is really does trying to score a retroactive point, and it really won’t work except to make other co-partisans happy–but it certainly won’t impress anyone else.

And, as such, Hinderaker makes my point in the conclusion from the post linked above:

Finally, I know it’s a trite observation, and one to which we have been driven on almost a daily basis since the Age of Obama began two short months ago, but can you imagine the hooting and hollering that would have ensued if George Bush had never heard of Orion? I can’t, actually

(Side note: one can mispronounce a word that one knows, as it is possible to read a word, understand a word, and yet not know how/have even thought about how to pronouce it and then sound like an idiot the first time one utters it with other humans around. Think, for example, of the word “epitome.”)

I honestly don’t know what “I can’t, actually” means, except that maybe he is suggesting that Bush would know about/how to say Orion. Although, again, of the turf upon which to fight, is George Bush’s ability to pronounce words the place one wishes to be?

At any rate: note to those at Power Line and elsewhere: find something else to make fun of, as there has to be something, and stop trying to score retroactive points.

At a minimum, one would think that if Obama was, indeed, bringing socialist totalitarianism⁵ down upon us, that there would be more to talk about than the frakkin’ Telemprompter. I note all of this because I find a) it to be all so ridiculous, b) it is just more evidence of the general lack of a serious opposition in the center-right at the moment, and c) the whole issue has spilled over from silly blog commentary to mainstream news.

1. Although if one is a denizen of the ‘Sphere, one is likely familiar. [↩]
2. Andrew Sullivan’s rejoinder to this is classic and worth a quick surf over to his place. [↩]
3. And this is just an objective fact and not intended as a slam. He could actually give, on occasion a decent prepared speech, but no reasonable observer could look at his locution and not note that it was idiosyncratic, to put it kindly. [↩]
4. Indeed, this was a talking point used against Gore, as a Google search reveals numerous mentions out there on the ‘net–serves Al right for inventing it, I guess. [↩]
5. And I am not engaging in hyperbole here. See, for example, WND: Obama camp seeking ‘totalitarian’ state? or the multiple rantings of Glenn Beck (examples here and here. [↩]