Hopey changey

By Capt. Fogg 

Can you believe there's a website called teleprompterpresident.com? The local trailer parks echo with teleprompter jokes, there are more teleprompter jokes clogging up blog comments than there are clumps of fat in Rush Limbaugh's arteries and that chattering little chipmunk Palin just can't let go of that chewy chestnut. I wonder was Abe Lincoln only a charismatic guy with some scrap paper? Yes, he was to be sure, but not only and the Small Government Conservatives slandered and murdered him anyway.

But of course the mini-skirt Moose Mom doesn't know, and doesn't care that you might know that the first time the electric note cards were used was at the 1952 Republican Convention by former President Herbert Hoover. It was the first one ever televised of course and he did it again in 1956. Whether he was charismatic or not, I will leave to you and to Sarah Snickers, but Eisenhower used one from 1952 and virtually every other president, candidate, and TV talking head pundit at various levels of charisma has used one too.

That's right, George W. Bush used a teleprompter, there he is in the picture, although I'm told "that's different" by the snarksters and flim-flam bloggers and if you remember the TV debates, Bush even wore some kind of device worn on his back. So it's hard to know what Governor Barbie had in mind, but it's clear she doesn't feel threatened by anyone who knows more than she does -- which is most of us -- because like most irresponsible pseudo-conservative snarko-terrorists, she's always surrounded by the like-mindless who think she's a genius.

Maybe if George had used one more often or had been able to read along with the moving words, he wouldn't have given us such delights as "the childrens is learning" but we'd be so much poorer without such things as part of our culture, or whatever remains of one.

So, yes, the president is a charismatic man, which of course is required for political success in the age of television, but that's a bit like saying he's a man who wears shoes. Compared to the most educated of recent Republican candidates, he's a bit more than charismatic and of course, note cards or not, when he speaks he says something -- and in respectable English as well.

But when one really can't be described as anything more than political junk food, and that's the kindest thing I can say about Sarah Palin the human Twinkie. When you're a tasteless confection of sugar, oil, and starch with no ability to do anyone any good, the best you can do is just what she does. Well, never mind about the hope and change -- you're hopeless and intransigent. You abandoned Alaska, leaving them with record debt and some incoherent story, but it was all about a better offer, wasn't it? So isn't that all you are -- a mendacious mediocrity and charismatic candidate for What Not To Wear -- with notes scribbled on your palm?

So how's that wiggly-giggly thing working out for ya, Sarah?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)