{"id":108,"date":"2015-01-15T08:36:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/01\/drat-that-teleprompter.html"},"modified":"2015-02-26T11:42:34","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T17:42:34","slug":"drat-that-teleprompter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/01\/drat-that-teleprompter.html","title":{"rendered":"Drat that teleprompter!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So I finally got around to watching infamous video of Obama\u2019s remarks on the attack on Charlie Hebdo:<\/p>\n

<\/iframe> \nAnd, yes, everyone is right that he seems unengaged and half-asleep.<\/p>\nBut here\u2019 why Obama was soporific: \u00a0the teleprompter was scrolling through his speech too slowly. \u00a0All of the pauses? \u00a0He was waiting for the next line of text.<\/p>\nOf course, this is an explanation, not an excuse. \u00a0For a short speech, with little content, he shouldn\u2019t be using the teleprompter, and in any case, it was awful to have this distracting moving of his head from side-to-side, which might be made to look natural when giving a speech to a large audience (as if you\u2019re just making eye contact with people on either side of the auditorium), but is just terrible when speaking into a camera.<\/p>\nCompare, for example, to Reagan, in his speech addressing the Soviet downing of flight KAL 007 in 1983. \u00a0True, this was a speech for which Reagan and the speechwriters had more time to prepare \u2014 it was given on September 5th, where the plane was shot down on September 1st (though these days were spent uncovering the facts of the case, not speechwriting).<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9VA4W1wDMAk?feature=player_embedded\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\nAnd, of course, the thoroughly impromptu speech that Bush made at the site of the World Trade Center:<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x7OCgMPX2mE?feature=player_embedded\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> \nWhich brings me to the question: \u00a0Why didn\u2019t Obama go to France?<\/p>\nYes, of course, there are multiple reasons. \u00a0It\u2019s true that security is an issue \u2014 though, the more I think about it, if our American security precautions are so mind-bogglingly extensive that it prevents our president from travelling in such circumstances, then this goes to far, and needs to be curtailed.<\/p>\nBut this business that his advisors didn\u2019t event tell him about it? \u00a0No, that\u2019s not an excuse. \u00a0Obama is a grown man, and if he\u2019s making even rudimentary efforts to do his job, he should have been the one initiating the discussions with staff. \u00a0(Yes, I know, we hear report after report of how much time he spends \u201cunwinding\u201d from the stresses of the job by exercising, socializing, watching sports, and much less reporting on the hard work he\u2019s doing that produces all this stress.)<\/p>\nThere are further explanations \u201cout there\u201d \u2014 that it\u2019s all due to his narcissism, and his unwillingness to be \u201cjust another world leader\u201d marching with the pack, or, contrarily, his expectation that, if he attended, he would inappropriately be the center of attention. \u00a0There are speculations that he really doesn\u2019t want to show any support for Charlie Hebdo because he disagreed with what they were doing in the first place, even claims that he\u2019s a one-man sleeper cell for Islamism. \u00a0(OK, the last of these was <a href=\"http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/rogerlsimon\/2015\/01\/12\/sleeper-cell\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">an article<\/a> that said, paraphrasing, \u201cI started out with that premise as a joke, but, regretfully, find more evidence to support that theory than I\u2019d like and none to counter it.\u201d)<\/p>\nBut fundamentally, Obama just doesn\u2019t want to deal with terrorism. \u00a0He wants it to go away.<\/p>\nBush and Obama started off the same: \u00a0each had a domestic agenda. \u00a0The former, to be a \u201ccompassionate conservative\u201d; the latter, to re-make America into to the welfare state that Europeans (in American progressives\u2019 minds) know and love.<\/p>\nWhen 9\/11 happened, Bush knew that he couldn\u2019t just proceed with his plans. \u00a0Whether you agree or disagree with what he did, he understood that he had to engage with the problem. \u00a0He was transformed.<\/p>\nBut Obama hasn\u2019t been transformed. \u00a0He just wants terrorism to go away, and wants to wish away each successive event as a one-time thing \u2014 and accordingly puts in minimal effort. \u00a0Sort of like what my son does with a homework assignment he doesn\u2019t like, avoiding it or doing a slapdash job unless we stay on him. \u00a0And there\u2019s no one to stay on Obama like we do with our son.<\/p>\nAt least, that\u2019s the optimistic explanation, which I\u2019d rather believe that the alternative, that he\u2019s perfectly fine with radical Islam gaining greater power.<\/p>\nHmmm. . . has Obama ever been seen eating pork? \u00a0(Just kidding!)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So I finally got around to watching infamous video of Obama\u2019s remarks on the attack on Charlie Hebdo: And, yes, everyone is right that he seems unengaged and half-asleep. But here\u2019 why Obama was soporific: \u00a0the teleprompter was scrolling through his speech too slowly. \u00a0All of the pauses? \u00a0He was waiting for the next line […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[85,84],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-charlie-hebdo","tag-terror-attacks"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Drat that teleprompter!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So I finally got around to watching infamous video of Obama's remarks on the attack on Charlie Hebdo: And, yes, everyone is right that he seems unengaged\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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