PrairiePundit

Toby Harnden: Speaking at an event in Fairfax, Virginia, a relaxed and confident President Barack Obama had plenty of witty retorts and quotable sound bites to aim at his challenger Mitt Romney. The problem was that they came a day and a half after he had been demolished by Romney during the first presidential debate in Denver and were scripted and delivered with the aid of a pair of teleprompters flanking the stage. ‘Now, my opponent, you know, has been trying to do a two-step and reposition and got an extreme makeover,’ Obama, speaking against a backdrop of 150 women of shapes sizes and ethnicities gathered on a stage at George Mason University, said to chuckles. He mocked Romney for using the example of Sesame Street’s Big Bird, shown on PBS television, as something that did not need to be publicly funded by borrowing money from China. ‘When he was asked what he'd actually do to cut spending and reduce the deficit, his big example was to go after public television,’ Ob...

Chris Cillizza: ...   In short: The use of a Prompter gets at authenticity, which should be the watch word for all politicians in the coming election. These days voters tend to believe that all politicians are telling them what they want to hear. For Republicans, Obama’s use of the TelePrompter is the height of inauthenticity — reading words written for him by someone else from an electronic device. ... He does over use it.  I recall one picture of him using it in a grade school classroom.

Kyle Smith: A reading from the Book of Barack, 3:22:09. And the Word was heard from above. America, my flock, my followers, my enthusiasts and aficionados. This is thine president, thine one true president. Hark and behold my words, for let it be said that I am very good at this job. The times we live in are times of storm, and strife. Of hurt, and pain. It is a time when even I must humble and prostrate myself, to consult an authority of wisdom and insight. I speak of the Book of Roget. The Day of the Synonym has come to pass. It is vital that I double my words, so that I might speak in double talk. Thou shouldst heed my speech, but not too closely. Attend to the measured cadences and prose poetry, not the trifles of substance. For substance is the curse of lesser mortals.The hour is upon us for the AIG bonuses to be denounced. When the knowledge was loosed upon the land that the false prophets of finance had enriched themselves with the false profits of bailout money, I...