(2008-06-13) — Sources close to the Obama family say that, at home, Michelle and the girls often get so caught up in Barack Obama’s stirring rhetorical flourishes that they hardly notice the TelePrompTer.
One of Mrs. Obama’s old college friends said, “Michelle still tears up when she talks about Barack’s historic ‘Will You Marry Me?’ address. She said he really bridged the racial divide, while calling for change and a new kind of bipartisanship.”
“He planned every little detail of the speech,” said the unnamed source, “He even made sure that when he took a knee to pop the question, he’d still have a clear line-of-sight to the TelePrompTer. Although Michelle knew it was written by a paid staffer, the way he delivered it really made it his own. Very personal.”
The Illinois senator’s daughters reportedly love how “Daddy tilts his head at an angle during dramatic pauses in bedtime stories, as if waiting for the applause to die down. His hypnotic repetition of ‘I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam I am’ often brings the girls to their feet.”
However, neighbors and close friends also report that the Democrat presidential nominee has never performed as well during informal conversation around the house, or over the fence with neighbors while doing yard work.
“He fumbles for words,” said one Hyde Park resident who often sees Sen. Obama at the Wal-Mart. “He’s gazing about as if searching in vain for a cue card.”
Impromptu settings and unanticipated questions can also lead to embarrassing gaffes.
“Who could forget the night when Barack told his two daughters he loved all four of them,” said one anonymous friend.
Another source noted that Michelle and the girls “looked dismayed” when, during an unscripted moment at the dinner table, Mr. Obama said, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.“
8 responses so far ↓
1 gafisher // Jun 13, 2008 at 8:33 am
Michelle and the girls gave Barack the TelePrompTer a few years ago when they decided having a live prompter under the dining table was just too weird. It was the first Thanksgiving Day in her adult life that Michelle felt really proud of the turkey.
2 Maggie // Jun 13, 2008 at 9:14 am
Great, Scott,
I ask the age old question, how do you do it? Is Ms Right Wing feeding you ideas?
“I love the way daddy tilts his head”, priceless.
3 upnorthlurkin // Jun 13, 2008 at 9:56 am
And all this time I thought Scrappleface was a satire site!?? Maestro Ott, you nailed this guy! I bow to your brilliance…..we’re not worthy….
4 upnorthlurkin // Jun 13, 2008 at 10:04 am
Gafisher and Libby… from the previous thread..I still have two rotary dial phones working in my house! One’s a 300 and the other is a three slot pay phone! I also have an old switchboard out in the garage….ah yes… anyone remember cleaning the dial contacts with dollar bills?! If it was too cold or wet to go back out to your truck for the emory paper, a dollar bill worked just fine! The memories….
Oh, and I keep the oldies around for the pretty sound the brass ringers make….I silence all the icky electronic ringers!
5 gafisher // Jun 13, 2008 at 11:39 am
upnorthlurkin, do you remember tweaking the relay contacts on Stroegers?
Ah, the good old days. When I was a kid I could tell who someone in my house was calling by counting the clicks on the AM radio. Really mystified them.
6 onlineanalyst // Jun 13, 2008 at 11:47 am
Obama has now embraced a newer technology for those times when a TelePrompTer won’t do- ecstatic fans levitating from their seats blocks the view at the most inopportune moments.
Yes, with the wonders of BlueToothâ„¢ advances fitted into a Beltoneâ„¢ hearing device, Obama is ablt to raise his nose before the crowds with ever-increasing conviction. (Can’t his pencil neck support his head?)
Somehow, I cannot imagine OhBummer doing his own yardwork or shopping at WalMart. Mama Michelle has already put the kibbosh on his filling up the SUV, given the implicit dangers to a man of his coloration.
BTW I saw some crime statistics in the “community organizer’s” bailiwick that exceed the damage wrought in Iraq. Methinks that the lad ought to head back to the ‘hood and address the problems there, rather than taking on a task that he is less than able to tackle.
Heh! The WV is avoided ambition
“Yon Obama has a lean and hungry look”
7 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jun 13, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Oh you guys. I have no idea of what you are trying to convey. I never used a dollar bill on my phone to clean it or otherwise, likely it was because we were so poor we never had a dollar bill, though I once had an Uncle Bill and often I would get a bill from the phone company.
My grandmother still used her crank phone back in Meriden, Iowa up until the late 60’s. One day a neighbor told her it was time to get rid of that old crank so she poisoned my grandfather’s coffee. Oh, he survived and they always had a good laugh over that until the day he hid my grandmother’s dentures and she couldn’t eat her Rye Crisp.
After that incident they got his and hers denture cups with locks on them. That my friend became a bridge war that garnered little or no laughs. I guess if there was a moral it would be about not using crank phones when your digits can do all the walking and for God’s sake leave your spouses dentures alone or you may get bit/gummed by the hands that feed you.
Where is this stupid story going? I don’t know, but not to fear because it is finished. I hear the phone ringing, er playing some old country song. sigh
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