two questions...forget who's the leader of the Republican Party...the real question should be...who's in charge of the Democratic Party ?...think about it...Obama reads everything off a teleprompter...so...who's writing it ?...

the other question is straight from Rush's Friday show...transcripts please...I'll let Rush ask the question...like only he can...

" Is This What You Voted For ? "

RUSH: Let's go back to Election Day, 11/4/08. That was the day of hope. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9625. At this moment, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is hovering around 6580. It is down over 3,000 points. That means that just since November the 4th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost a third of its value, $3 trillion of wealth has been wiped out. Is this what you voted for? A record 31.8 million Americans receive food stamps at the latest count. That is an increase of 700,000 people in one month with the United States in recession. These are government figures. Food stamps, which help poor people buy groceries and People magazine and Pop Tarts are the major US anti-hunger program forecast to cost at least $51 billion in this fiscal year ending September 30th. That's up $10 billion from 2008. So we have 31.8 million Americans on food stamps. Is that what you voted for? The new government unemployment figure is out today, and it is 8.1%, over 600,000 jobs lost last month. "The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs." Is this what you voted for?

ha

Well Rush certainly won't have to worry about his job. He built his career with a Democrat in office.

augh rush!!!!!

Bush read...or tried to read...his speeches of a teleprompter too.

Musta been reading the Cheney script eh?

Rush... the voice of 11% of America.

Bush, Clinton, Obama, Bush... all used their prompters. They have speech writers for Christs sake. The real question is: Who owns them, because if you look at political donors you're going to see the big money behind all of them.

we're talking about EVERYTHING !...not just speeches...EVERYTHING !!..

i would think the prompters are needed. they have long speeches as well as other things to remember

Top Contributors
This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization's members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors - like EMILY's List and Club for Growth - make for particularly big bundlers.

University of California $1,201,178
Goldman Sachs $955,473
Microsoft Corp $798,049
Harvard University $789,560
Google Inc $782,964
Citigroup Inc $653,468
JPMorgan Chase & Co $646,058
Stanford University $568,566
Sidley Austin LLP $565,788
Time Warner $544,601
National Amusements Inc $541,285
Wilmerhale Llp $524,292
IBM Corp $515,249
UBS AG $513,919
Skadden, Arps et al $505,774
Columbia University $503,566
Morgan Stanley $485,823
US Government $479,306
Latham & Watkins $461,511
University of Chicago $457,735

from Yahoo news last week...

Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.

Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in Hawaii. But no such luck.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the Grand Foyer.

“It’s just something presidents haven’t done,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. “It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter.”

Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.

The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. “Kathy,” Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled.

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he's been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

Ari Fleischer, a former spokesman for George W. Bush, said while it’s entirely a matter of personal style, using a teleprompter at these smaller events has its drawbacks.

“It removes you from the audience in the room,” Fleischer said. When speaking from notes, Fleischer said, the president can pick up his head and make eye contact with those in the audience, as opposed to focusing on the teleprompter to his left and right.

Bush, Fleischer added, “would use the teleprompter for his major big events, but when he would travel around the country or do events, he would almost always work off of large index cards.”

The White House says Obama’s point of reference is insignificant.

"Whether one uses note cards or a teleprompter, the American people are a lot more concerned about the plans relayed than the method of delivery. This is not always true of the media," said Bill Burton, deputy press secretary.

Obama has never tried to hide his use of a teleprompter. It was a mainstay during the final months of his campaign. He brought it to county fairs and campaign rallies alike — and once had it set up in the ring at a rodeo.

In a break from his routine, Obama did not use a teleprompter during his pre-Inauguration speech at a factory in Bedford Heights, Ohio — and his delivery seemed to suffer. He paused too long at parts. He accentuated the wrong words. And overall he sounded hesitant and halting as he spoke from the prepared remarks on the podium.

As president, the stakes in what he says are higher. Governing is not campaigning, and, as a former first-term senator, Obama has not held a previous elected position where his words carried even close to this level of influence.

“In this kind of environment, you don’t want to make mistakes — on the economy you’re talking about doing things that affect the markets,” Kumar said.

But be it extra precaution, style or a mental crutch, Obama has shown in the past that he needs the teleprompter. And while he still has his prepared remarks placed on the podium in a leather folder, the White House has shown no sign of trying to wean him off of it.

Before Obama entered a room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday to announce his crackdown on defense contracts, a CNN reporter asked an Obama aide if the teleprompter could be moved further away from the podium or lowered. The answer was an unequivocal ‘no.’

“He uses them to death,” a television crewmember who also covered the White House under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush said of the teleprompter. “The problem is, he never looks at you. He’s looking left, right, left, right — not at the camera. It’s almost like he’s not making eye contact with the American people.”

Wednesday’s event posed another scenario photographers and television crews have to work around. Obama had five others join him at the announcement, including Sen. John McCain. The takeaway shot was of Obama and McCain. But the teleprompter on Obama’s left was almost directly in front of McCain.

“You couldn’t get a good angle on him with McCain,” said a White House photographer who also covered Bush. “So if there’s someone else important in the frame, it’s hard to get a shot without the teleprompter.”

i still don't see anything wrong with using one

Again...gotta love the fact that when Bush gave speeches he used the teleprompter too and even when he did that his gaffs were frequent and often pretty damned funny.

The occasions when he was without one in press conferences he did a lot of verbal and physical squirming.

But when Obama uses one it spawns horse**** like this.

Ever heard the song...is it George Throurogood who sang, "Everybody funny..now you funny too"

He ought to know at least the first half hour by heart. Spews the same regurgitation at the beginning of every speech.

If Rush asks it must be important

Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in Hawaii. But no such luck.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the Grand Foyer.

“It’s just something presidents haven’t done,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. “It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter.”

Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.

The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. “Kathy,” Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled.

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he's been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

I don't care if he read it out of the newspaper.

Obama needs to focus 100% on the financial system because until that stabilizes unemployment is going to continue to go up.

The Treasury department is in shambles. A deputy treasury secretary spot if still vacant and the Treasury Deptartment is about half staffed at this point.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030501358_pf.html

Does it matter reading off a teleprompter (which are placed on the left and right sides of the podium) or notes on the podium?

both yield same results.

words mean things...and...David Axelrod is writing them...Obama is just the salesman...some leader we got here...

dude who cares , is this the worst thing you can say about him? and rush limbaugh is where you get it from . gimmie a break man . come with something legit . anything that comes from rush is a load of bull !@#$ . every president uses a teleprompter , bush couldnt give a good speech even with one .

I do !!...