POTUS and TOTUS

Without warning yesterday President Obama's port teleprompter departed it's mounting and crashed to the floor. Somewhat abashed, Obama managed to limp the speech home on the starboard wing. Curiously it was the left wing that lay smashed. The right stood fast. But I digress.

POTUS is the Secret Service acronym for President Of The United States. TOTUS is the tounge-in-cheek acronym for Teleprompter Of The United States. TOTUS has his own blog.

As a former TV presenter myself and close observer of Ronald Reagan's commanding - nay Presidential - TV skills, I can say this with great certainty:

Barack Obama, as much as he is addicted to it, does not know diddly about how to use a Teleprompter.

For all the blather about Obama's oratorical skills, he lacks the ability to get his words up off the printed page or the prompter screen and into the camera lens. Obama whipsaws his head left then right then left again but he never looks at "you".

His prompter screens are arrayed on either side, so to gaze into the camera lens and therefore into the viewer's eyes he would have to unglue himself from the prompter screens. And that would mean he could no longer see his script. Can he not at least memorize one full important sentence per page and deliver that straight to camera?

Does he not know that the camera with the red light on it allows him to look people right in the eye - and hold their gaze? I truly believe he does not.

I "trained-in" others on the correct use of the Teleprompter. I always warned them that the prompter could fail any time and at that never-appropriate time their best friends would be the paper script on the desk (don't lose your place) and the camera lens in front of them. Love the lens. It will love you back. Ronnie knew that.

I suppose I could be convinced to go to Washington and teach him how to do it. I would have to get some kind of waiver to smuggle in my Ronald Reagan tapes though. And a lot, a big lot, of money. My email address is at the top of the blog guys.