Conspiracy Theories and Technology

Not surprisingly the right wing is belligerent about President Obama's use of a teleprompter. This isn't a new complaint, we heard it all throughout the campaign that Obama relied way too much on a teleprompter when giving speeches. But Tuesday night's press conference really sent Republicans over the edge. The teleprompter use further acknowledges right wing wacko's conspiracy theory that President Obama is a mind-controlled robot or a Manchurian candidate.

Today's lesson in right wing Fantasy World conspiracy theories is Jaz. He believes the "most honest way to use prepared remarks is to have a sheet of paper in front of you. Most accomplished public speakers don't need a line by line prompting like a robot, rather they can glance down at the podium and see a series of bullet points."

How sad this has really become. The President of the United States uses technology instead of pencil and paper and he's a "robot" and "dishonest." Teleprompter use is very common in the 21st century. When cavemen ruled the world notes jotted down on your hand sufficed. But now that we have a thing called technology that allows a speaker to grasp the full understanding of his/her speech without any obstruction to the audience, it's much easier and painless and commonly accepted.

Not to the GOP, though. There was nothing wrong with the way cavemen did things. The use of technology makes the audience feel as if "a scam is being perpetrated on you." Using such technology is "a calculated deception, attempting to trick the audience into believing that the speaker is reciting his words from memory, or out of some profound conviction." It's not enough for Jaz and the GOP that Obama writes a majority of his speeches. To him "conviction" only comes from a complete recitation from memory or use of note cards or the speaker's being dishonest and scamming people. I wonder if Jaz even really understands how blatantly stupid his new found concern for presidential speaking abilities sounds. I'm guessing he doesn't.

It is true Obama used a teleprompter for his press conference. But he didn't use the teleprompter to answer questions. Once questioning began the mind-controlling teleprompter was turned off. I suppose to the right wing it's only acceptable to use a teleprompter when it's used as a phonetic pronunciation guide.

Oh wait, that reminds me. Jaz demands that I not use Bush to defend Obama. It's breaking the Regretted History Law and doing so only demonstrates my anger of George W. Bush. What Fantasy World Cavemen fail to understand is that there is a difference between defending and pointing out complete casuistry.