Sarah Palin’s Palm Notes Were Actually Brilliant Ploy to Draw Attention to Obama Teleprompter
Or so Fox News now seemingly suggests.
What truly is stunning is how in recent years partisans will jump through all kinds of mental hoops to try and excuse things that people on their side do that they berated others on the other side for doing. You could say “mind-boggling” but now this is the norm. Outrage and ridicule is only directed at those who you seek to politically defeat, but you look the other way or play defense attorney if your own side does it. As noted in another post, both sides are off base on this “issue.” Both Obama and Palin can speak without using teleprompters or hand notes. It’s a kind of easy crutch, kind of like Linus with his security blanket, it guarentees order to the speech or discussion — but no one wants to pass up a change to blow something way out of proportion if it can denigrate someone of the other party.
39 Responses to “Sarah Palin’s Palm Notes Were Actually Brilliant Ploy to Draw Attention to Obama Teleprompter”
They seem to think that we are making fun of her because she in essence did something Obama also did.
We are mocking her because she can't own up to her own need for a mnemonic aid, and tried an adolescent tactic instead. That's pretty damn immature. But I guess it's that slightly pre-pubescent innocence and stumbling girlishness that the sheep love.
Also, it's cute how she crossed out “cuts” in preparation for her little “right-wing rainbows and Christian unicorns” speech.
I don't care if Obama uses teleprompter or not. I just can't see where he is such a great orator when in fact he may just be a great speech reader. And probably most of his speeches are written by someone else anyway. It was interesting to note that the Rev. Wright also seemed to read his speeches; although in the old fashioned way without teleprompter.
Someone on another post mentioned Obama's talk with the Republicans in Congress the other day. I have to admit he did a great job. He seemed well prepared and presented himself well. At other times when I have heard him speak more extemporaneously he seemed to get lost and bumble around somewhat. However as a speaker I would have to rate him better than Sarah Palin.
However poking fun at the other side is a time honored tradition among politicians. It seems like when a Party gains the majority the lose their sense of humor. When Bush was in office Republicans never seemed to understand a joke made at their expense. Now the Democrats are taking themselves far too seriously. When I was a young boy I had the opportunity to hear Jack Kennedy give a speech. He was late to the event and open up his speech by apologizing for being late, but he assured us he wasn't late because he was playing golf ( a slam on Eisenhower). Sometimes a joke is just a joke. And a joke is never funny unless it contains some elements of truth. Democrats just need to find their own jokes to tell some of the cartoons of Palin are a scream.
This is probably a little off topic but people seemed to be so uptight and can't take any criticism of their opinions that they lash out at people with a different opinion. Yeah Joe we do look differently at those who have similar political view and those with opposing views. Point taken.
Clusterf**k Nation
“most of his speeches written by someone else”
I find that line intriguing because in modern politics I can't name another president that has written even some of their own speeches. For instance Reagan had Noonan and Clinton had Stephanopoulos and JFK had Sorensen, Obama also has writers but I was stunned by the amount of his speeches he had written himself because…that is just not done anymore. It may explain though why some of his speeches come across with a good deal of sincerity though, not hard with your own words. It is dangerous and gutsy and leaves you with no one to hide behind. His books were also written by him not a ghost writer, that may sound like no big deal until you dig a bit and realize most pol's books are not only ghost written but ghost written by famous and well known writers. So you can take this rant as you wish but when thinking about speeches you may want to look into the last president to write so many of his own because contrary to the myth sold on the evening news it is actually very uncommon.
I think both sides are desperate to have a leader they can believe in, someone they feel is going to champion their views and go to bat for them. It's just too bad we can't find a leader who has such a command of the right stuff that all the partisans are shocked out of their division enough for us to shift this country into gear and go forward. I don't know what thats going to take, but I fear that if it doesn't happen soon we are going to get so far behind that it will take generations to take up the slack. I'm not even sure what such a leader would look like or if it's even possible.
Sky Father is right. Obama puts his own personal stamp on his speeches more than any other President in recent memory. That's why the teleprompter charge was so silly. You mean he reads his own words on a screen? Gasp!
The whole teleprompter meme is as meaningless as 90% of Republican criticism of Obama. It reeks of pure jealousy. In fact, it's much like the more unhinged criticisms of Reagan from the left in the 1980s. There was a substantive case to be made – and many made it. But the loudest notes of criticism were the silliest. (The same was true for the Bush and Clinton years, by the way.)
CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose. I think she did it on purpose, yeah. Because it’s an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter with a script written for you with every word in a sentence and here’s she’s just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes her look like she can just talk off the cuff and she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went out to give a big long speech.
Wow!
Mrs. Palin was reading her “big long speech” from her built in teleprompter and/or the script in front of her on her podium.
The bullet points on her palm were points to prompt her to the answers to the pre-screened—and probably pre-discussed questions.
As I mentioned in another post, there is nothing wrong with using a teleprompter or script for a speech.
What is wrong is criticizing others for doing exactly the same. In other words, iIt’s the hypocrisy.
I did some quick homework and found the last president to write his own speech was Nixon's “silent majority” speech. Just thought that would help with the context of my statement.
Nixon – Hunter Thompson's best muse
…and who turned out to be a crook after all, and yet probably had more common sense than most republicans who came after him. Who would have guessed?
I am shocked, just shocked that St Ronnie did not write his own speeches…
But then again with alzheimers…
Thanks for the information and good points. BTW I didn't mean the statement, “….written by someone else…” to be derogatory. I just assumed that his speeches were written for him because that, as you pointed out, has been the modern modus operandi of most presidents.
I think Nancy wrote them. Just kidding.
What bothers me isn't just her cheat notes (writing on your hand? Seriously? What is she doing, taking her driver's license test?), it's her statement that (paraphrased) “Politicians need to listen to God more.” WTF??? All we have is a bunch of politicos who don't pay attention to facts and data and make judgments based on the voices in their heads.
If the Teabaggers want to have any relevance, they've got to stop the dogma and deal with the facts. Palin wouldn't recognize a fact if it was tied to a rock and thrown threw her window.
That is actually what I assumed, I found it freakish myself and the fact that he wrote that race speech himself is beyond stunning to me. I took it more as simple “inside politics” I just took the chance to have a “teachable moment” if you will since I know that information did not make it to the “other side.” Take me with a grain of salt though, I am not fond of the current incarnation of the GOP(still like and respect Bush I and many before him though) and I am equally unimpressed by the Dem's but I am a well known Obama apologist on this board that at one time spoke much more like Nick Rivera. I miss those days of cold hard “a pox on both their houses” realism but I suppose sooner or later you have to like one and this one is mine but it does not mean I should not be honest about it.
has no one here ever written anything with collaborators? i mean, i've written a few journal papers and a crap load of conference papers… and whilst my name is first in line, i'm certainly not responsible for all the syntax. but the work i talk about is mine. and i have final say on what goes.
this is how i understand speeches to be. with my thesis advisor akin to the speechwriter. he drives most of the language (mostly because he's picky about stylistic things we disagree on. and hey, i let it go to smooth the process)… but i'm in charge when i'm first author…
From what I know of the process, which mostly is derived from in house people telling the story decades later, the presidents pick the theme and maybe a few key phrases and then the real writers do the rest. I think it is a point of view thing, for me they are your words or theirs. Your ideas or theirs. If they are your ideas and your words you get big brownie points in my world but I doubt it matters as much to others as it does to me. I hate ghost writing, it makes writing look easy and from my view is little better than paid for plagiarism. If you did not write the book of your own life why would I believe you lived it either?
Sarah Palin talked about the need for another revolution in America.
I just want to ask, who's going to be part of this revolution, old Ladies with tea bags attached to their hats and 300 pound morons who don't know the difference between socialism and facism?????
I can't decide whether there was more stupidity behind the podium or in the audience
Maybe Sarah Palin's handnotes were a brilliant ploy to make liberals go off the deep end again and give the rest of us a good laugh at the overreaction. I'm no Palin fan, but her critics tend to make themselves look more foolish in their efforts to make her seem so. Don't know why, but usually when her name comes up it seems like liberals lose 50 points of IQ (at least those that have that much to start with), kinda like mentioning Obama's childhood makes birthers look like idiots.
Nice try, Leonidas, but the consensus among pretty much everyone with half a care for the future of this country, is that Palin is poison. Willfull ignorance, jingoism and Christianist nonsense do not a political platform make. And believe it or not, it pains me to say that, because we desperately need the kind of young female politician she pretends to emulate.
Interestingly enough, the only prominent Republican I've seen call out the Teabaggers is…Megan McCain. Imagine that! A young woman in her 20's with the guts to say publicly what we all know: this “movement” is made up of aging, racist malcontents. It has no hope of being anything other than an outlet for the uneducated and uninformed to spew what's REALLY on their minds.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/?fbid=GrXR…
Young people today have no interest in denying gay people or people of color their rightful place in society. Young people see through the jingoism and the ignorance to the rotten core beneath. This movement is already dead, they just don't know it yet–white, angry and ignorant, their day is near sunset.
This is what I call irony.
Was that a potty joke?
Because I'm not sure it's acceptable under newspaper standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
LOL. Well, like porn, I know irony when I see it.
Thanks for the primer, though. I like the way the little window opens.
Sorry not “trying” I'm no Sarah palin fan and I'd absolutely hate her to get the nomination (no chance in hell of it anyhow). I'm just baffled by the total hatred and intolerance toward anything with her name attached among the left. She writes a couple notes on her hand and liberal heads explode as if it was an alien invasion. Trig Truthers just need a hobby I guess.
As for Megan, of course she goes after Tancredo after he delivered multiple insults to her father. her remarks at the Tea party itself seem to be more of a question as to why they have Tancredo speaking than the movement itself, so your comment seems a stretch or misrepresentation of her at least from what I can read in your linked article.
As far as a young woman in her 20s having the guts to say something publically, thats the nature of many a 20 year old to be quick to react and speak out. *shrug* When I was twenty I'd speak out quite often publically, usually before putting much thought into it. Now Ms. McCain may or may not have put much thought into her words, I don't know, but I don't blame her for taking a shot at Tancredo who is an idiot and calling into question a groups motivations for having him speak to them. I have no problem agreeing with her in that regard.
I still find it very odd why a 20 year old, even if its McCain's dauhter, being so much of an attention getter. When Jimmy Carter mentioned asking his daughter about a political issue did we all swarm to Amy Carter to get her views on the issues of the day? Nope. I care more what her dad thinks.
The Daily Show 's John Stewart was comparing “Hi Mom” on Sarah Palin's hand to Obama's teleprompter dependency. I actually believe that John Stewart is becoming a Sarah Palin fan. He is certainly a Scott Brown fan! John Stewart ordered a Scott Brown for President bumper sticker on http://ScottBrownForPresident.com
Megan McCain is a commentor in her own right and gets a lot of attention because she is represents a direction that Republicans could (but probably won't) go in that would be attractive to younger voters.
All the presidents after Reagan have to feel pretty embarrassed them, since the guy with alzheimers outdid them all in the speech giving department. Only Clinton came close to being in the same league.
I do think the issue is pretty juvenile, when it comes from the left or from the right. I dunno — I used to be a fairly good concert pianist, but improvisation was definitely not in my skill set; I had a buddy who was the opposite — couldn't really read music, but give him a piano and a back-up snare drummer and he could make you weep with zero practice.
On the other hand, the notes that Palin had on her hand might be the equivalent of using, instead of a piece of sheet music, a big piece of paper that said “don't forget to play piano”. They were really odd things to write.
90% of the time she seems to be a mirror image of her father's positions. One notable exception is gay rights which she is more outspoken in her support for than her father is, kudos to her for that, but mostly she echoes the old man.
So, to the point of one side defending the actions of one of their own, then condemning them when the other side of the aisle commits them, I have noticed this more at the onset of this administration than ever before. It's the most frustrating part of watching the debacle that our democracy has become. If only those folks on the left who were criticizing Bush II for spending too much money on the wars 5 years ago could muster the same level of outrage now maybe we'd get somewhere…
The irony of your statement is awesome, thank you.
Spirit26, were you asleep or too young to remember the Republican's in the mid-to-late 90's?
Meanwhile the administration seems to ignore the President's claim about Americans:
“They're tired of the partisanship, of the shouting, of the pettiness”?
White House press secretary mocks Sarah Palin from podium
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/20…
Doesn't get much more petty than that, congratulations Robert Gibbs.
http://media.oregonlive.com/politics_impact/pho…
We have three year olds running the Executive branch departments it seems.
I meant to reply to your comment earlier but real life problems intervened. Thanks for teaching me your lesson. Although I am not an Obama fan or at least a fan of his policies, your lesson raised him up a little in my mind.
I thought the joke was funny. I suspect Sarah thought it was funny too. She probably also knows that if your going to dish it out your going to have to be able to take it sometimes.
The podium, at least when Robert Gibbs is behind it.
Gibbs does a Palin
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/Gib…
What a stupid and childish thing to do when your boss who you are the spokesman for is calling for getting rid of pettiness and partisanship. Gotta be the dumbest thing I've seen in quite a while.
Yes she probably did laugh at it, good for her.
Gee I hate having to defend someone who's politics I pretty much disagree with, but doing the right thing is paramount and her intolerant detractors deserve to be called out even though I agree with them about not wanting her in office.
Both, like I said, I've just noticed it more this time than ever before, I guess.