From an interview Gibbs did with the Post’s Lisa Romano:
MS. ROMANO: The teleprompter changed last night.
MR. GIBBS: Mm-hmm.
MS. ROMANO: What was that about that? It’s a big jumbotron now.
MR. GIBBS: You know can I tell you this?
MS. ROMANO: Yes.
MR. GIBBS: I am absolutely amazed that anybody in America cares about who the President picks at a news conference or the mechanism by which he reads his prepared remarks. You know, I guess America is a wonderful country.
MS. ROMANO: You’re saying this is all Washington Beltway stuff?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t even know if it’s that. I don’t think I should implicate the many people that live in Washington.
MR. GIBBS: No, I you know, I don’t think the President let me just say this: My historical research has demonstrated that the President is not the first to use prepared remarks nor the first to use a teleprompter.
From a chat with Chris Cillizza today:
In the first few months of the Obama Administration conservatives — spurred on by Matt Drudge — have mocked the president for using a teleprompter at nearly every public speech.
[….]But, look how much time we have spent discussing the prompter in this chat. And, there’s no question that Drudge has been the prime driver of that story.
I’m not criticizing Cillizza here. To the contrary, he deserves credit for admitting where the story comes from. But why the hell is Romano pushing what she must also know is a Drudge meme?
aimai
Because the press hates to be seen to be in the tank for any democrat. And because any serious appraisal of the overall economic and political situation and the way Obama has handled it would make any sane journalist drool like an adoring fan if they were only honest. The more the "populace" loves Obama the more the press, who respond primarily to each other, will need to keep its elite status by attacking Obama. Look at that moron ed henry’s imaginary conversation with Wolf Blitzer? Only someone whose only frame of reference was other journalists could have imagined for one second that the most important thing in a press conference was "making news" by asking some stupid petty question about anger instead of some difficult question about, say, actual economics or policy. In the same way the people talking about the teleprompter will keep talking about it because its fun for their social circle. It just has nothing to do with news or reporting or hard work because that’s not what they are in it for.
aimai
Polish the Guillotines
Laziness.
GambitRF
It’s really don’t understand how these memes get propagated. I’m pretty sure if you got a group of random fourth graders together, most of them would know that teleprompters have been used by just about everyone in public life for a while now, and that they’re not this strange new invention created solely for Barack Obama. You don’t just have to be dumb to read this stuff off of Drudge and convince yourself that its news, you have to like willingly sever everything that’s tethering you to reality.
"Ooooh! At first he was using two little teleprompters, now he’s using one big one! This means… uh…. uh…… something!!"
MikeJ
And "jumbotron"? Would a sports stadium sized tv even fit in the east room?
Was it some sort of large screen tv? And if it was, what difference does it make? The GOP/beltway press are now technology critics?
Just Some Fuckhead
I predict that by the time Obama is impeached, we’ll be longing for a President that has to wear a receiver on his back and repeat after the voice in his ear.
gypsy howell
I am mystified that they think the teleprompter thing could catch on with the average american. All you had to do was watch his online press conference, or any other he’s given, to know that Obama can talk off-the-cuff at length and knowledgeably (unlike his predecessor WPE) to realize that this teleprompter bullshit is just that … manufactured bullshit.
Who do they really think they’re fooling?
Cat Lady
Do reporters read any blogs, or comments to their columns, other than Drudge and Politico? They seem to be completely unaware of the criticisms directed at them, which, when your profession is in danger of disappearing, is FAIL. Every single media critic and blog commenter can predict what meme from Drudge will be parroted by the MSM, and yet they can’t seem to help themselves. Do they really not care? Why do they not see that their lazy predictability will be their epitaph? They’re a complete joke. Good riddance to all of them.
smiley
As has been stated many times in threads here, they propagate this stuff despite the evidence provided by their own eyes and ears. Will we soon see reports that say, "Today at the town-hall meeting with the people of Atlanta, the president did not use a teleprompter, marking a rarity for this president." OR, "In the third presidential debate, President Obama talked directly to the moderator and the republican candidate, eschewing his usual teleprompter."
Mary
Cillizza is not just "admitting" where the teleprompter story comes from, he is cheering Drudge’s success. He is proud, so very proud, of Drudge. He spent the entire campaign writing piece after endless piece arguing for Drudge’s continued relevance and pushing and justifying storylines. I see him as a Halperin wannabe and I don’t like him. Am I wrong?
Napoleon
I love how Gibbs handled her.
smiley
@MikeJ:
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, "a lot of bloggers" comes to mind.
Who else is paying attention to this nonsense?
valdivia
@smiley:
too late. AP already did this in an article yesterday. It had a sentence that said exactly that. "President Obama reading remarks from a teleprompter"
As for Cilizza, he needs to ask why they talk about it? Because The Village determined it was A Subject of Importance nudged into it by Drudge. His comment is totally disingenuous.
Did you guys see the op ed in The post today by that dimwitted Bush Speechwriter?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Ah, good ole Lois, always the craptastic, mediocre hack she’s shown herself to be in years of WaPo chat sessions.
And the Post wonders why it’s bleeding money.
The problem is, the younger crowd on the WaPo (the political ones like Kane, Bacon, Kornblut, Murraigh) are absolutely no better.
AnotherBruce
I must say that Gibbs really gets to the heart of the matter. Normal people don’t care that Obama may use a teleprompter to deliver his remarks. Gibbs has a very dry and cutting wit. It really helps him to deal with the rampant assholery of the Washington press corps.
This Roveian tactic of attacking Obama at his strength has failure written all over it. It’s pathetic really. Try telling someone "Don’t believe your own eyes and ears, Obama can’t speak without a teleprompter." and see what kind of yawn or vacant stare you get.
smiley
@smiley:
Don’t know what the hell just happened.
@MikeJ:
That’s what Rush has been calling it. Seriously, we now know where Ms. Romano gets her talking points.
Zandar
To paraphrase the great David Addison, "Do birds bird? Do bees be? Do Villagers service Drudge orally?"
Karmakin
roflmao
….
BURN!!
..
Llelldorin
At a guess, it was coded racism originally, and is now professional jealousy.
As I recall, the "teleprompter" thing started during the late slog of the primary season, when the race had boiled down to Clinton vs. Obama. At the time a component (not all, but a reasonable chunk) of anti-Obama opposition was driven by barely-disguised racial hostility. The problem is that it’s hard to pin racist tropes onto Obama–in particular, blacks aren’t stereotypically supposed to speak like JFK on a good day and like Paul Krugman on a bad one.
Thus began the great "teleprompter" foobah. "Ah," the insipid little thought goes, "Obama just sounds well-spoken because he’s well-trained to read from teleprompters. Without them, he comforms to our little racist imaginings." (He doesn’t, of course–he sounds like an academic. His natural speech is riddles with little pauses and "ums" as he gets his next sentence organized. If you’re a racist loon, though, it’s good enough.)
I find it telling that the thoughtful Clinton supporters–the Krugmans and Digbys–never went down that little rabbit hole. Teleprompter dementia was exclusively the province of the loons and PUMAs.
Now Obama’s been elected, and he’s facing the press corps. I’ve worked in journalism (albeit in the enthusiast magazine end, not in news). Journalists develop a fierce pride in their ability to craft words effectively–it’s part of what distinguishes professional journalists from the merely nosy. The problem is that Obama is an extremely adept wordsmith–he rather famously is much more involved in writing his own speeches than is typical. That’s a bit galling to a certain type of pompous ass who can’t stand not to be the very best at any skill they take pride in. Thus, the press now also jumping onto teleprompter mania, to convey a slightly different thought: "See? He’s not that good with words, compared to us. He’s got a giant TV-thingy, and we don’t!"
Mike S
@GambitRF:
They become news because the GOP message machine is very good at stove piping stories. I’ve been paying attention to talk radio for years now. I could always tell what ridiculous story would make the news that night. It was the story that every winger show did that day.
I remember the first time I heard about the Swift Boat Vets for lies. It was obviously a non-story. But then I started hearing talk radio pushing it and I knew that it was coming. Every show was leading with it.
Amd regardless of how many claims they made that were demonstrable lies, the media treated every one of them like they were credible.
Andrew
Gibbs has been on a roll lately. Did you see his response to a question on the Republican budget?
"It took me several minutes to read it," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in his daily news briefing at the White House.
Napoleon
@Karmakin:
Shorter Gibbs "everyone in this town isn’t as stupid as you".
anonevent
@Karmakin: I wonder if Obama and Gibbs have a contest to see who can make the most subtle jab at the press and get away with it. I think Gibbs wins this round.
blahblahblah
Who was the last president that did not use a teleprompter? Who was the last President that did not use prepared notes when giving a speech? Is anyone in the press willing to give context to this insanity?
TheHatOnMyCat
@Mike S:
It’s a little more subtle and effective trick than that.
A story doesn’t have to be backed up by anything other than repetition. The mainstream will pick up any narrative as long as there is enough repetition of it, as long as enough people are talking about it. The narrative can be completely nonsensical, or just false, as was the case with Swift Boat. Doesn’t matter.
What matters is that the mainstream will report that it’s being talked about. In that protocol, the facts of the matter are not relevant.
The right knows this. But the effectiveness of it is fading. People are learning to look beyond the "It’s out there" level of a story and wait for the truth of it to emerge. People have been had too many times.
It will always work with low information folks, but the spread of information availability is decreasing their numbers. I don’t know what made people think that the spread of information would prop up low information strategies.
Low information response is shrinking. Not uniformly or reliably in every case, but slowly, and surely, shrinking.
Zifnab
@blahblahblah: John F. Kennedy wears makeup on TV. LIKE A GIRL! I’m voting for Nixon, because he’s a real moral leader I can get behind.
KCinDC
I’m very happy to see Gibbs pointing out that there are plenty of ordinary humans who live in Washington, DC. Hell, most of the politicians and talking heads who give the place a bad name live out in Virginia or Maryland anyway.
Athenawise
Teleprompter use, Special Olympics apology, too much media exposure, Final Four picks, and the White House dog = media overload.
The worst economic crisis since the 1930s, continuing military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. banking system on a tightrope, China owning our debt, America’s reputation in tatters, hundreds of thousands of jobs lost every month = media yawning.
Same as it ever was.
gwangung
Um, I thought TV anchors frequently use them for broadcast news?
Evinfuilt
I do wonder why we didn’t get all these stories about Bush, and his teleprompter.
Okay, but really we all know Bush never used the Teleprompter, that’s what Cheney used while his hand was up Bush’s ass controlling him.
West of the Cascades
Why can’t we get past this by noting that when President Lincoln read his short speech dedicating the Gettysburg national cemetery (a rather good and well-known address) he read from a carefully-prepared text?
Or that for most of the early history of the republic the State of the Union address (arguably the most important regular speech – and only constitutionally-required one – from the President), presidents provided a written message which was read to the Congress by someone else? A leader writing out in advance what he/she wants to say so that’s its clear, concise and precise has always been DESIRABLE in our history – the teleprompter is just different technology for doing that.
Good journalists should be aware of this and shoving it back down the throats of the recklessly ignorant people pushing this meme.
Ricky Bobby
First they tell us that Obama is simply a charismatic speaker with no real substance. Now they are trying to push that he is a terrible speaker who without a teleprompter (lotta those at the debates, eh?) would be babbling and drooling on his shoes.
Cognitive dissonance ain’t got nothin’ on these fools.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Llelldorin:
If only that were true of the news media…I’d love to see how long the anchors would survive the 24 hour news cycle without their jumbotrons. Hmm, on second thought, perhaps Congress should pass a law banning teleprompters. Let’s see who survives the longest, the media or Obama.
R-Jud
@Evinfuilt: I thought the consensus was that Bush wore a wire. Or got his material beamed in from the Reptilian mothership via his brain implant. I forget.
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Absolutely. In their line of work they, you know, have to repeat things to kind of catapult the propaganda. I think of it as the Snark Principle: "What I tell you three times is true."
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Athenawise:
Clearly, it’s not the media’s fault. Obama is boring. *shrug*
Atanarjuat
It’s true that this teleprompter issue is really starting to become a distraction.
I think it would simplify matters greatly if one of Obama’s suits were draped over a teleprompter and set up whenever a Presidential decree is made. In this way, the American people can information directly from the source by cutting out the middle man.
-A
Nellcote
They’re still covering up for McCain’s lack of ability to use one.
Perry Bacon? Has ever had an insightful thought? He comes across as a human doorstop.
MikeJ
BTW, is THIS the sort of set up they’re referring to as the "jumbotron"?r
Ash
I would’ve cheered Gibbs on had he decided to kick that WaPo lady in the face with her stupid questions. You get a chance to talk to Gibbs one on one, which is a pretty big deal, and THAT’S the shit you come up with?
Legalize
I’m a baseball fan so I’m gonna call him "Gibby." I like Gibby.
rock
Cilliza’s response is telling in that for him, journalism is a game. And Drudge just smacked one over the wall with the teleprompter meme. Raising issues that get play and become conventional wisdom is the equivalent of a score to these people. And they celebrate all-stars like Drudge who play at an exceptionally high level.
To me, it looks like they are completely invested in a small "journalism" world and career ladder, and no longer have any concept of reporting having merit in terms of accuracy or import to the people of the country. It’s all about getting media play. It’s all a game.
It’s sadly comic that in the midst of two wars, looming depression, the looting of the nation by the gilded class, and the coming end of cheap energy that talking about a teleprompter is all the rage. Gallows humor, indeed.
ricardo
Why is she pushing the meme? Drudge Rules Their World. . . aided by the fact that they are shallow, sensation-seeking vessels for right-wing propaganda.
Elie
They know its bullshit but they need the traffic and the buzz. They need the reassurance, no matter how lame, that they can cause us/the administration, anyone to react. And we satisfy that by having these comment threads about bullshit.
If there was no reaction, or reverberation to this, they would feel invisible. They don’t care that it makes no sense, that it isnt true — its something to let them know something is happening that THEY generate.
Llelldorin
I meant the pool reporters, not the anchors. It’s usually pool denizens who bring up the teleprompter, yes?
different church-lady
@GambitRF:
But if you studied a random group of fourth graders it would explain EXACTLY how wingnuts approach life.
different church-lady
@gypsy howell:
Answer: each other.
And that’s really all they care about at this point.
TenguPhule
Hasn’t been put in a liberal reeduction camp yet, that’s why.
Mike S
@TheHatOnMyCat:
That was my point, although you expressed it better.
But there is also the fear of the media that they will be attacked since they aren’t covering what the GOP message machine thinks it should.
bago
Gibbs telling her that a city run by a crack-addict wouldn’t want to be associated with her brand of stupid was sublime. The continued smiling and nodding after that was icing on the cake.
timb
Gibbs is clearly the best and funniest press secretary in recent memory….I mean, sure, he had me at the youtube of the ass-kicking he gave Hannity, but still "more pictures of windmills than numbers. By the way, there’s one picture of a windmill" and "I don’t think you should implicate everyone in Washington." Comedy gold.
Go ahead. Name a better press spokesperson. His obvious ability to make me laugh and abuse Rush seem to indicate, with my knowledge of bureaucracy, that he is not long for the job. With that said, he will do much better on TV than Dee Dee did.
jake 4 that 1
I propose a national day with out teleprompters, cue cards and notes. I’d actually watch CNN on that day.
And in one sentence he smacks down an idiot and becomes the 2nd most popular man in the city.
MikeJ
Adrian Fenty’s a crack head?
AhabTRuler
Hey, catch up with the rest of us here in 2009, mmm’k?
bago
Ok, let’s try adding some time into that sentence.
"ONCE run by a crack-head".
AhabTRuler
And let’s be completely honest. The bitch (and the Feds) did indeed set his ass up.
Joshua Norton
Yeah. And what’s with this using a microphone? I thought he was such an accomplished speaker.
Fencedude
@Atanarjuat:
Lets try this from a different tack:
Who wrote Bush’s speaches?
Who writes Obama’s speaches?
MikeJ
Have you noticed that they use electric lights when Obama speaks? Part of his messiah complex, I’m sure.
jake 4 that 1
@MikeJ: And what’s with the clothes? What’s he hiding!?
This is starting to remind me of the attempt to find sinister meaning in the fact that the President of the United States of America had lots of [gasp!] American flags at his public appearances.
Will Danz
@Atanarjuat:
Yeah, the witty Republican communications expert says: the American people can "information" directly from the source.
"Information" is not a verb. I know you rightwingers think that reality is whatever you fevered dreams tell you, but still … not a verb.
As to your larger point — um, you don’t have one.
MikeJ
The fact that he’s swinging more pipe than Joe the Plumber has ever seen.
bago
@MikeJ: Ah, the travails of pipe swinging. Been there.
Mike in NC
Gerson the serial plagiarist. Who could possibly take that guy seriously except the WaPo? I feel better informed reading B.O.B.
West of the Cascades
You couldn’t tell it from the headline and from the first 2/3 of the op ed but Gerson’s WaPo piece actually PRAISED Obama’s use of the teleprompter, and uncharacteristically made some sense on that narrow issue – key lines at end:
During a wobbly first two months, Obama has had many problems. But using an autocue isn’t one of them. A teleprompter speech represents the elevation of writing in politics. And good writing has an authenticity of its own.
jm
Republicans think they’re being clever by portraying Obama as a poor communicator. They’re trying to use Karl Rove’s strategy of attacking an opponent’s strength but they got it backwards. Rove didn’t attack a strength but a weakness that the opponent wrongly believed was a strength.
It’s foolish to use this strategy for two reasons:
1) Obama really is a damn good public speaker. And he knows it.
2) It doesn’t work. It failed miserably in 2006 and when they tried it against Obama all during 2008 it failed then also.
The GOP has been using variations of this for well over a year now. This month it’s the teleprompter, next month it will be something else. I think they’re happy with this plan and oblivious to the fact that it hasn’t achieved the desired results. You’d think the election results might have clued them in. Guess not.
Funkhauser
It’s Lois Romano, not Lisa.
Mnemosyne
@Llelldorin:
Ding ding ding. That is exactly what the subtext is when right-wingers push this meme: "See? He doesn’t really speak well. He’s not that smart. He only got where he is because of affirmative action. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
Sadly, there is a certain percentage of the population that prefers to ignore the evidence in front of them. See: the crazification factor.
Not surprisingly, the term originally referred to the Obama vs. Keyes Senate race in Illinois, but it’s become more general since then.
wheaton pat
#1 for a reason. The best summation I have seen in the past two years. BRAVO!!! Aimai RULES
Because the press hates to be seen to be in the tank for any democrat. And because any serious appraisal of the overall economic and political situation and the way Obama has handled it would make any sane journalist drool like an adoring fan if they were only honest. The more the "populace" loves Obama the more the press, who respond primarily to each other, will need to keep its elite status by attacking Obama. Look at that moron ed henry’s imaginary conversation with Wolf Blitzer? Only someone whose only frame of reference was other journalists could have imagined for one second that the most important thing in a press conference was "making news" by asking some stupid petty question about anger instead of some difficult question about, say, actual economics or policy. In the same way the people talking about the teleprompter will keep talking about it because its fun for their social circle. It just has nothing to do with news or reporting or hard work because that’s not what they are in it for.
aimai
piltdown
I wonder if Rush uses prepared notes….
cosanostradamus
.
That’s the *ssh*le with the hat, right?
Who cares?
.
tom.a
This teleprompter stuff drives me crazy. The device is like 50 years old! When has Obama NOT used a teleprompter? When has any President since the early 60s NOT used a teleprompter? Sure some use hand-written notes, but that’s the same thing as a teleprompter, just without electricity. It all just makes me want to get drunk and eat ice cream (which just so happens is exactly what I’m doing!).
Blogreeder
Who cares where the meme came from. Is this the way democrats will respond to criticism now? Oh it’s not a legitimate criticism because it came from so and so. Is this the beginning of a witch hunt? Will we get senate hearings with
"Are you now or have you every been a conservative?".
thrashbluegrass
These people need to be reminded about Palin’snew-clear weapons.
CalD
This is a subject that I find myself pondering on a pretty regular basis, most recently in the context of Mr. Obama’s famous chortle in the 60 minutes interview. The partisan (either kind) of course would immediately jump to the conclusion that this was always just more evidence of the establishment media’s underlying agenda in favor of the other party. I’m not sure that’s constructive — not to say that doesn’t go on, but I don’t believe it explains every case and probably not even the majority.
My best guess is that more often than not, this sort of thing probably comes down to two root causes:
1. Rewriting each others copy about inconsequential dross is a hell of a lot easier than actual reporting on actual substance. People take the easy way out for a variety of reasons. Some may just be lazy by nature. Others, perhaps may be suffering the fatigue of a perpetual state of understaffing in their organizations — a common consequence of the ongoing trend toward media consolidation.
2. Reporters can be a catty breed and virtual all are gossips by nature — the nature of profession would tend to select for that trait. This is probably just the kind of crap that many tend to titter about among themselves. A culture of self-indulgence may lead them to conclude that it therefore merits mentioning to anyone else.