The Practical Math of "Too Much" Telepromptering

The meme going around like a bad cold is that President Obama relies "too much" on teleprompters. A line so oft repeated it's officially reached the point of late-nite pop culture status.

What makes this kind of nontroversial attack slick is that, different from easily proved instances of excessive use like "too much" Old Spice, the "too much" teleprompter tag is, of course, an empty accusation. There's no universally accepted measure for the appropriate amount of political telepromptering, which makes it difficult to do the practical math.

Difficult but not impossible.

The most accurate way to measure the president's teleprompteriness is by comparison of his first 66 days in office with those of his immediate predecessor. Reviewing archived video on C-SPAN and exempting such must-have prompter moments as their inaugural and State of the Union addresses, the empirical evidence is that compared to President Bush, President Obama is indeed teleprompter-dependent. Jan. 23rd, 2001: Bush unveils his education plan -- no teleprompter; Feb. 26th, 2001: Bush addresses the Nation's Governors -- no teleprompter; March 19th, 2001: Bush addresses the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce -- no teleprompter.

A sampling, but you get the picture.

However...

Not being teleprompter-dependent isn't the same as being prompter-independent. As to be expected, in those addresses and others President Bush read from prepared text. No big deal and not much different than reading prepared text from a teleprompter. For those who have never actually used one, a teleprompter isn't some kind of science-is-magic communication genie. Merely having words projected before you does not give one the ability to speak those words with additional weight or emotion.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Jindal.

So, maybe the better comparison isn't how much time a president spends reading from a prompter -- any prompter -- but how much time he spends speaking to a national audience extemporaneously. Thus far, President Obama has held as many solo press conferences as former President Bush over a similar time period -- two. Bush's having been on February 22nd, 2001 and March 29th, 2001. However, both of President Obama's press conferences have been during prime time with more viewers watching him work without a net. Bush didn't hold his first prime-timer until October 11th, 2001. President Obama has also held town hall meetings in Elkhart, IN, Fort Myers, FL, two in California, in addition to appearing prompter-free (for better or worse) on the Tonight Show as well as holding a virtual town hall meeting on the internet.

All that is to say: compared to President Bush, President Obama is actually more likely to do "too little" telepromptering during "too many" Q&A sessions before "too many" people.

And while phrases may deceive, numbers don't lie.

For more insight please visit That Minority Thing.com

Comments

[TXOBAMAGIRL73]

If a beef with teleprompter is all they have, they don't have much at all much!!! Comparing GWB to BHO is like comparing a 2YR OLD WHO JUST MASTERED SHAPES AND COLORS TO A PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, MATH AND SCIENCE get the picture. Everybody knows which is which and those who don't are in denial or sos(stuck on stupid) !!!

[LeftLeanWing]

Does anyone remember how Bush while reading his written speeches , would use the end of a line as a command.

My Fellow Americana I am Your President George,
Bush and tonite I will speak to you about my,
budget proposol.......

[Cyclone]

I'm noticing more and more bloggers on Huffpost picking up trash from Drudge, Limbaugh, Politico and other right wing sources. It's one thing to make fun of the absurdity and quite another to take them seriously. It appears the public doesn't care whether President Obama reads prepared remarks from a telepormpter or not. HE actually writes 95% of them anyway. So toss this silly argument around all you want. The people who matter, that would be the voters, seem to like what the guy has to say. Teleprompter or no teleprompter. Now could we get back to discussing something that truly matters, like why did Michelle plant an herb garden at the White House and what does it really mean?! Should we be afraid?

[offred]

I've noticed a real surge in anti-Obama, neocon, and ultraconservative wingnut commenters on HuffPo since the inauguration. Has anyone else noticed it?

I've even posted responses such as "If you dislike liberal [progressive, Democratic, etc.] people and viewpoints so much, why do you spend so much time on HuffPo?"

Don't you think they'd be concerned about catching liberal cooties?

I wonder if the wingnuts have been kicked off right-wing playgrounds and come over here because they have nowhere else to play. Maybe they're lonely.

[blkcat x lady]

Lol!!!

"Liberal cooties"! bugabuga I find that to be true as well. They know their comments on the rightwing sites are just more of the same slime so, come over here to get some type of outrage. I try to ignore their poison as soon as I start to read it. Someone, please please tell me why these people are so d@mn angry all the time? They were pi$$ed when they were in the majority and running things, they're pi$$ed now because they have no clue what's going on. They have no idea how to work with anyone other than in their own party even if the idea is totally stupid. I wonder why they don't just get it that by working alongside us, everyone would benefit. Knowing us liberal, progressive lefties..we would welcome them..even while we were watching our backs when they patted it..gotta watch those knives no matter how small! lol

[DrCadr]

Michelle Obama is planting an herb garden at the White House?? Wow, that must mean the world's going to end. We should follow her lead - when the apocalypse comes, we'll need thyme on our side.

[offred]

We'll rue the day we have no more thyme.

[littleolwinemakerme]

That was a moronic post.

[dadw5boys]

Teleprompter = Planning

You deal with one subject at a time if you can.

[klondiker]

I can't believe this is even an issue!

He likes to make eye contact and he doesn't have 4 hours a day to memorize speeches. Get over it.

[DrCadr]

There is a reason that an increasingly larger and larger amount of people are finding BO rather disingenuous and removed from ordinary people's lives.

[offred]

Yet if Obama travels the country to speak to average citizens in townhall meetings, he's derided by the MSM for trying to evade the media filter and by rightwing pundits who think Obama should stay in the Oval Office and WORK, as though implying the hardest-working president in recent history is lazy.

[DrCadr]

I give presentations often. It'd be nice to see him speaking with a little more heart. I do think he's well intentioned, intelligent and capable. I just think that he's used them to appeal to the over sensitivity of our media. One could argue that he's only responding the most effective way possible. He just needs to be a bit more balanced.

[marthlois]

Actually, I honestly believe that those making the comments need to hang with the complete town hall and the complete press conference rather than getting snippets of the prepared remarks from Fox news. Come on... I guarantee you that the right-wingers do not watch his town halls. If Bush had given lots of them, I could not stomach watching him do so. Give us something a lot more that teleprompter mockery folks......give us some
strategERY!

[katekid]

"too much telepromptering?"
I just don't get the point of this criticism.

[Moka11]

I harken back to the days of gwbush and his sixth grade reading skills and his bowed head buried into the page of goofy wiki-facts and moronic geographical catch-phrases like 'oceans no longer protect us".
I also recall the awkward teleprompter challenged john mccain who I couldn't bare to watch read from either a paper or prompter as he squirmed and squinted without inflection and would stumble on a word and would astonishingly restart the sentence from the beginning.
The right-wing is so hatefully and childishly jealous of their new President. Obama educates while he speaks while Republicans have no dynamic and engaging matchup of their own.
This is why Rush Limbaugh has such clout and leads their Party of fools.

[blkcat x lady]

I forgot to ask, "oceans protect us" ...from what? lol This one really got me !~ I haven't stopped laughing yet. It's feels so good to find things to smile about now..even in these trying times. I think it's because we realize realistically, that with this President, this administration, this congress...and US..that WE are going to get out of this mess..in time. People are smiling a little more and being a tad more kind, or maybe it's just me as I tend to walk around with a goofy pleasant look on my face anyway! lol Always have a party going on in my head! And, you are so right about mcgrumpy as well. Did you see his false outrage recently when he was speaking/reading on the floor chastizing President Obama about some made-up sh*t (oh, yeah...pork in Prez O's budget..his fav)and when he was through, he was to pound the lecturn for emphasis.? It was like he was seeing the speech for the first time and when he got to the end he saw the exclamation mark and realized that or it was written on the speech to, "pound on the lecturn in anger here sir"! lol He has such a wimpy voice and to say the least it fell flat..sounding like an angered five year old needing a nap! hehe

[Shake-A-Spear]

I don't care whether he uses a TelePrompter or not as long as his intelligence comes through as well as his obvious skill in using the device. It's something neither McCain nor Jindal ever mastered, so its use can harm as well as help a speaker.. But I do wish Obama WOULD NOT use the device when he expresses anger as when he railed against the AIG bonus awards. One shouldn't need a TelePrompter or a script as an aid to getting genuinely pissed off.

[icon22]

Obama's biggest critic for his reliance on the teleprompter happens to be Rush Limbaugh, who love him or hate him, can give a very good speech, while not needing one. Rush obviously has a set of core beliefs and has no problem communicating them in public. Obama may have a set of core beliefs that he can easily communicate in a speech, without the teleprompter, but many of his core values are so far out of mainstream America that he wouldn't dare say them.(see Rev. Wright) Sinse the president can not say what he really believes, he MUST have people write down his words for him to preserve his precious approval polls. All of this has worked very well for our president so far, but in 2012, the Republican candidate will have this and a whole lot of other ammunition to use against Obama, that poor old John McCain did not have and just like Jimmy Carter, President Obama will be a one term wonder!

[RustyGranite]

Rush can give a good speech without one because he has NOTHING. ELSE. TO. DO. WITH. HIS. LIFE.

Obama is the leader of the free world. Teleprompt it up, buddy. As long as you're solving problems.

[Palmz]

"his precious approval polls" is driving you and the rest of the right wing party of no, insane.

Personally, i am loving it. I am loving every minute of it. When the only thing you guys can complain about is "teleprompter" then the president is doing a great job under the circumstances.

Look at it this way, we could have been asking SarahPalin to dig us out of this ditch.

Oh, the thought and the horror!

[Palmz]

Mos Def said it best on Bill Maher......" this is what happen when you are the black guy with the job. Excessive scrutiny."

How is this even a controversy?

Then again with the silliness that consumes us every time there is a crisis in this country, i can't say i am surprised.

[icon22]

With all due respect for Mos Def, if President Obama was a white man and ran for president in '08, with the very same credentials, he would have been laughed off the stage and I think everyone knows that!

[RustyGranite]

JFK wouldn't have won last year? GTFOH.

08' wasn't about "credentials". You must have been asleep the entire year.

[Palmz]

They were all laughed off the stage with their credentials.

Are we even on the same page or is it that he is proving the wing-nuts talking points, that you are now echoing, WRONG?

BTW, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharton were laughed off the stage with their credentials too.

[offred]

Icon22, everybody doesn't "know" that. Your saying that doesn't make it so; it's just wishful thinking on your part.

[OldSchoolLiberal]

I think it is a fair, though not major, criticism and Obama should try to give at least one talk a month without it. Image matters for politicians. They use image to get elected and to help them lead and it would be nice to see him comfortable enough with his ideas to talk about them without a script.

[Human-Being]

Where have you been? Did you watch the debates? The last 2 live news conferences? Read any of his newspapers editorial board conferences druring the election? He shows more comfort in talking about a whole host of issues than any president I have witnessed in 40 years.

[RustyGranite]

Seriously.

WTF is the issue?

[vesaversa1]

Reilly i love your blog post man but your just adding on to the republicans childish accusations by posting this . There are so many subject ,issues that that this country is facing and you have been consistent in writing about them . You have mad skill man please use it to write about thing that is relevant .

[arvay]

I'd rate the chatter about the teleprompter a bit below speculation about Brintey Spears' IQ.

[Human-Being]

Did anybody ever complain about Bush's excessive use of the phrase "it's hard work'? Or did they complain about his dependence on the words Democracy or freedom, to explain anything that he knew he couldn't explain truthfully?

Pres. Obama is being measured by a higher bar by the same people who didn't seem to own one when the idiot-in-chief was in office. Either that or he measured so low they didn't dare open their mouths.

[MaryT63]

Most americans expressed their desire for wanting a serious, educated person to lead this country in the 2008 election. Obama won based on where he wanted to move the country. The people voted for this move. The consevative media is picking on his every move, hoping something sticks to him. They did the same w Clinton and Gore. Unfortunately, too few progressives are out there speaking up for the agenda the people voted for. Too much conservative media defining the agenda and the too little educated among us are soaking this crap up.
Thanks John for your take on this. Actually it's much ado about nothing, but we know how these right wingers are - they push, shove, lie, distort, misinform, disinform, hoping their 30% kool aiders follow them blindly.
I am more worried about the democrats in congress than about some playground tactics played on the president. Congressional dems are scary, wimpy, dodgy. More focus need to be played on them.