President Barack Obama doesn't go anywhere without his TelePrompter. The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president's prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks
President Barack Obama doesn't go anywhere without his 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 travelled 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.
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Obama's reliance on the teleprompter is unusual u2014 not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events.
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 TV crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president without a pane of glass blocking his face.
"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."
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 u2014 whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.
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