The thing about the whole OBAMA TELEPROMPTER MUAAHAHAAHAHA thing is that it became a joke among reporters, not just conservatives, who apparently never noticed that presidents regularly used teleprompters until Obama took office.
The fake teleprompter bit is rooted in racial insecurities/straight up racism. As in: “How can we explain away the fact that a black man has ascended to the office of President when we all know black men are inferior (especially intellectually)?” Or at least, “How can we soothe our stung white man’s pride at the fact?”
One way is to knock the uppity negro down a peg and/or to point out that he really isn’t all that smart after all – that he only sounds articulate because he’s reading off a teleprompter (unlike all those white presidentz).
That explains it!
It’s the same rationale behind Limbaugh’s claims that Obama only got into Harvard Law, and a spot as Editor of Law Review, because his professors and students either changed his grades (out of white guilt) or did his work for him (same). Because no black man could do something like that on his own, what with being innately stupid compared to white folks like Sarah Palin.
Which is remarkably similar to some of the sleazier, yet ubiquitous, smears hurled at Sonia Sotomayor during the confirmation process: she got into Princeton (and got outstanding grades while there!) because of affirmative action.
She was, after all, Puerto Rican. Which, and I’ll have to check my Bell Curve on this, places her somewhere above the negroes, but nowhere near Joe the Plumber.
The fact that reporters are running with these jokes is no shocker. See, ie, Richard Cohen, who is by all of his accounts, very, very funny. Just as Al Gore is fat.
February 19, 2010 at 3:36 pm
And, you know, the fact that almost all of the Obama critics I’ve personally met were white except the red marks where their knuckles dragged, has nothing to do with their disapproval of this Obama dude.
Sadly, there are a lot of them. I have not had a chance to personally inspect their peckers, but I suspect they, too, are collagen dropouts.
February 20, 2010 at 8:51 am
Don’t forget, it was white man Bill Ayers who wrote his books, too.
February 20, 2010 at 8:35 pm
But the alternative is to see him as one of those slick and crafty malignant narcissist d-darkie dark lord antichrist types, which is a lot scarier.
February 21, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I got chills. Can;t wait for dah movee.
February 21, 2010 at 9:03 am
[...] Over at the PMI, another idea presented, which makes perfect sense: The fake teleprompter bit is rooted in racial insecurities/straight up racism. As in: “How can we explain away the fact that a black man has ascended to the office of President when we all know black men are inferior (especially intellectually)?” Or at least, “How can we soothe our stung white man’s pride at the fact?” [...]
February 21, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I’m not disagreeing, but I’d add that Obama is unusually bad when he uses a teleprompter (which, to be fair, I’ve heard is actually really hard). I get sympathy pains in my neck watching him swing back and forth. I think this draws more attention to the teleprompter than normal.
February 21, 2010 at 1:15 pm
I remember sitting in a bar in Marietta, Georgia, while the election returns rolled in in 2000. There was a half-drunk frat boy type there that I vaguely remembered as going to the highschool that neighbored mine.
We got to talking politics and he asked me if I thought we’d ever have a female or Black president. He asserted that it would never happen because such a candidate would be in thrall to their minority status such that people who were not part of their minority would never vote for such a person.
I countered that, not only would we see a racial minority or female president, but we would see one in our lifetime and probably before either of use got at all old.
I forget his exact words, but they were carefully chosen, as he asserted that white protestants should run the country forever.
Fuck that guy.
February 21, 2010 at 4:18 pm
“white protestants should run the country forever”
And let him drink his ass stupid from here to eternity. Man’s got his priorities down fer sure.
February 21, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I hate to belabor the possibly obvious, but: talk about a guy being in thrall to his perceived minority status.
WASP love! Power to the white people! Think pink!
February 22, 2010 at 10:15 am
I never thought we’d see a black president in our lifetime, and I ain’t WASP. WEll, I’m half WASP, but a Quaker which hardly counts.
I still don’t think we’ll see a gay one in my lifetime.