Barry the Zero is an empty suit. What's behind him? Who's pulling the strings?
Posted on 03/17/2009 5:23:47 AM PDT by IrishMike
If President Obama is just reading the script, who is behind the curtain directing the performance?
There is no question that President Obama is an accomplished orator. As a candidate for president he inspired millions, thrilled young ladies and even sent chills up the legs of seasoned pundits. He was compared to past great orators like Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. But are his oratory skills overblown?
Every year Hollywood gives Oscars to the most accomplished actors. These actors pretend to be someone else. A mild mannered actor may play the part of a vicious killer. The actors read a script and their actions are controlled by a director. The script may be the product of several writers and the director wants the actor to recite the script accurately to portray the character. No serious person equates the actor to the character.
Obama's oratory skills have often been compared with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. These debates would last for hours and Lincoln didn't have the benefit of speechwriters. Debaters back then depended upon their knowledge of the subject.
More than a hundred years after the Lincoln-Douglas debates technology provided the speechgiver a valuable aid. The modern teleprompter came into use in the 1980's. The teleprompter is the mostly transparent glass panel that you see on the left and right of lectern. The text of the speech is projected on the panels so the speechgiver can read the text while it appears that they are looking at the audience.
I don't recall if Ronald Reagan used a teleprompter or not. Since the technology was available I would expect that he did use it on some occasions. But Reagan was giving speeches in the early 1960's without a teleprompter, making radio commentary, and was writing most of his material before he ran for president. When he became president he did utilize speechwriters but he was deeply involved in the final product.
Bill Clinton also used a teleprompter but he was quite comfortable without one. In one prepared speech the teleprompter malfunctioned. After a brief pause Clinton continued without it and returned to the prepared text when the malfunction was corrected. So it was apparent that Clinton was well informed on many of the topics he addressed.
President Obama hasn't demonstrated any of these skills. Obama has difficulty speaking extemporaneously and appears totally dependent on the teleprompter. Without the teleprompter he appears to be less confident and at a loss for words. Even when he was making a very simple six-minute introduction of his Health and Human Services nominee he needed a teleprompter. A primary complaint is that he doesn't make eye contact with the camera, he reads from the left teleprompter, then the right, throughout the entire speech. He is constantly reading and never makes eye contact with the American people.
Throughout the country there are hundreds of radio talk show hosts. Each host talks live on the air for a couple of hours on a variety of topics without a script or teleprompter. None of these hosts have been identified as having superior intellect, but 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?
Behind a president defined more by his oratory than any political figure in a generation is chief speechwriter Jon Favreau, whose work with Obama began soon after the Illinois senator arrived in Washington four years ago and who knows the president’s ideas and rhythms so well that Obama has called him a mind-reader.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-favreau-speechwritermar08,0,5016893.story
Barry the Zero is an empty suit. What's behind him? Who's pulling the strings?
Most definitely! And I’ve been saying this ever since I heard him speak.
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I always thought that Bill Clinton’s great charisma, charm, intellect and oratory were vastly overrated but Obama stands beside Clinton looking like a pissant by the toe of an African bull elephant.
I said that exact thing to someone touting ‘bammy’s “intellect”.
It makes them REALLY mad.
.. 
Jon Favreau.. Obama has called his head speechwriter a mind-reader. And at age 27, his prose is being acclaimed worldwide
He's a good READER, not an orator.
The inability to speak extemporaneously is a sign of a lack of intelligence.
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It can be but there are some who can rattle fluently all day without saying anything even remotely intelligent and some people are able to write brilliantly but have a difficult time speaking off the cuff.
My mother was very intelligent, she was second in her high school class at a time when few finished high school and the course work was tougher than most college work is now, yet she often had a tough time putting her thoughts into spoken words, she was much better at writing.
She narrowly missed being valedictorian, the young man who made the valedictory speech spoke eloquently. I remember him well, he used to come in the barber shop when I was getting a haircut as a young boy. He would wait until someone started talking about the world situation or the American political stage and he would edge into the conversation and show them all up as being ignorant of what they were saying. But, while my mother was a very productive person right up until age 75, her brilliant classmate never held a real job, never ran a business, never did anything except walk the roads and sponge off others. Perhaps in another age he would have been the supreme ruler.
Thank you!
Laugh at this Marxist fool. View the thread devoted to teleprompter graphics.(Click on picture)
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