Dana Milbank @ WaPo:
Barack Obama received a valuable reminder in his drubbing at Wednesday night’s debate: He is a president, not a king.
In the hours after the Republican challenger Mitt Romney embarrassed the incumbent in their first meeting, Obama loyalists expressed puzzlement that the incumbent had done badly. But Obama has only himself to blame, because he set himself up for Wednesday’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment. For the past four years, he has worked assiduously to avoid being questioned, maintaining a regal detachment from the media and other sources of dissent and skeptical inquiry.
Obama has set a modern record for refusal to be quizzed by the media, taking questions from reporters far less often than Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush. Though his opponent in 2008 promised to take questions from lawmakers like the British prime minister does, Obama has shied from mixing it up with members of Congress, too. And, especially since Rahm Emanuel’s departure, Obama is surrounded by a large number of yes men who aren’t likely to get in his face.
This insularity led directly to the Denver debacle: Obama was out of practice and unprepared to be challenged. The White House had supposed that Obama’s forays into social media — town hall meetings with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like — would replace traditional presidential communication. By relying on such venues, Obama’s argument skills atrophied, and he was ill-equipped to engage in old-fashioned give and take.
Luckily for Obama, the debates are, as one adviser put it Thursday, “a three-game series.” Romney’s after-debate glow will likely fade as he attempts to explain his dubious assertions that he would not reduce taxes paid by the wealthy and that his tax cuts wouldn’t increase the deficit. But even if Obama ultimately prevails, he should remember Denver as a warning: He does himself no favors by hiding from tough questioning.
Towson University political scientist Martha Kumar, who keeps a running tally of Obama’s media appearances, tells me he has had 19 solo news conferences in the White House as of Sept. 30. That compares to 26 for Ronald Reagan at the same point in his presidency, 59 for George H.W. Bush, and 31 for Bill Clinton. Obama had more formal news conferences than George W. Bush (13), but Bush engaged in many more informal Q&A sessions with reporters: 340 at this stage in his presidency to Obama’s 105. (Clinton had 585 at this point, the elder Bush had 309 and Reagan had 135.)
I doubt that Obama reads his speeches before they are put in the TOTUS. Remember him reading someone else’s speech all the way through, and didn’t know it until he was told? He is so used to being able say what he wants, and the propaganda media going along with it. He isn’t used to having his facts checked. He’s used to the propaganda media filtering his comments. When the people hear him live, there ain’t much they can do to make him sound like the person they have been telling us he is.
During his opening monologue Oct 5th, Bill Maher said:
I disagree, he apparently isn’t quick enough to argue fine points or give a reasoned logical response. Thus the reason why he avoids hostile questions and dithers over decisions is obvious; he looks like a bumbling fool if he isn’t reading a teleprompter. In a debate, he is unarmed, but if he had a teleprompter, he could look presidential, like he has throughout his presidency. There is an advantage in letting him use the teleprompter, we could see just how smart the people are who are actually running the country through this empty shirt. They probably won’t look all that bright either, and the question will be, whether they can type coherent answers quick enough for Obama to read them. It would be a glorious debate, a bumbling fool reading answers from someone else; but then we are asking, why not let Romney debate the Obama puppeteers pulling the strings, while Obama chokes his chicken on the couch with the hens from the view. He can do what he does best, have his ego fed, while he tells them he is eye candy.
This piece, and this article are perfect examples of the lack of both intelligence and inquisitiveness which has overwhelmed 85% of the MSM. Nowhere does Milbank ask, . . . WHY?
It’s understandable that these idiots think he’s smarter than the majority of them, so was my breakfast, but couldn’t they collectively put enough energy through a few synapses to trigger a couple of neurons that might come up with the question?
@Skookum: #3
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Your comment made me think of Obama as a middleman. He takes the goods from the factory, and distributes them to the ones who are willing to buy them. The buyers are finally figuring out that they are paying too high a price for what little they are getting.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama has one of those tiny ear buds so that someone can be telling him what to say.
Smorgasbord: To me Obama doesn’t qualify as a middleman. In business a middleman must be have business acumen to understand the basic principles. I classify him as an ideologue with the same skills as an actor. In front of an audience, he is in his element, but on a personal level or trying to accomplish even minor jobs they have no skills. This is an accurate description of many of the actors of Hollywood; they are empty vessels, but they command a following. This is the essence of Obama. His followers are beginning to realize his shortcomings , but they are wanting the rest of the country to make allowances for his inability to use logic and facts, and articulate; therefore, he should literally be allowed to be a puppet and have Romney debate a battery of unseen Liberal thinkers.
The earpiece requires a different skill set, listening rather than reading. Surely the listener receives key words rather than sentences or the listener/speaker might become confused. Obama obviously needs to read his speeches verbatim.
If we allow debates to devolve into the methods suggested by Liberals and college students, speakers will employ others to debate for them, while the cameras view the candidate smiling and looking serious at appropriate intervals. The teleprompter with canned speeches is the first step towards this mindless politician syndrome.
@Skookum: #6
I think you will agree that a good thing to compare Obama to is a marionette. One that takes several people to MANIPULATE. When the Obama marionette tries to speak on its own, it either babbles on, or accidentally tells the truth. This is when we learn what the real Obama is.
A good analogy Smorgasbord, I think the Democrats are seeing the contradictions. Like a man who had all the advantages handed to him, but professes to be the champion of the victim groups. Like the man who gives flawless speeches with a teleprompter, but can’t put his thoughts in order speaking without artificial aids.
@Skookum: #8
As I read your comment, I thought that the propaganda media has figured out that when Obama has to speak on his own, he is a baffoon, and if they keep trying to present him as THE ONE, they will look like baffoons too, and anybody with any common sense will see through the emperor’s and the propaganda media’s new clothes.
@Smorgasbord: #9
I have a suggestion for any entrepreneur: Create an Obama dummy or marionette, so YOU can have Obama say and do whay you want him to, just like Soros and others are doing now. The idea would also make a great advertisement, either a poster, or a video. I’d buy an Obama hand puppet.