Just more lipstick on the bull.

If her memory is so good, let's hope she uses it to find her way back to Alaska as quickly as possible.

Hysterical. On at least two occasions last night the text on her teleprompter was visible to the tv cameras. I remember noticing it because I had never seen that happen before, and I was surprised how big the text was...

Are all these people congenital liars?

It's part of their complaint that all Obama does is read well off a teleprompter, and look, Sarah Palin can do it without the teleprompter!

I don't know what they were watching, but the feed I saw showed the words on the prompter three times, and each time it was exactly what she was saying.

It doesn't shock me at all. Republicans are all about BS. Look at Ray-gun. He wasn't even Clint Eastwood or anything. He was a B-movie actor. Yet they acted like he was Tom Hanks. It shows how desperate they are when they have to puff up their VP choice like this.

I'm not an expert on compulsive liars, but my understanding is that lying once and getting away with it is such a rush that they start lying again when there's really very little at stake. That seems to be the case here. They've invented a narrative just to prove they can.

It's not like Pox News has credibility to diminish, right?

I wonder, though, why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically.

I think they just did it for Brick Oven Bill.

They are obviously trying to tamp down any criticism that Palin was just a good speaker/reader delivering a Rovian script.

They instinctively lie about everything else, so why not with this?

I so understand how civil wars start now.

Blatant and willful mendacity has got to meet its match at some point.

Besides that lie, she had notes at the podium. when they panned out and around her you saw the written sheets of paper with the speech on it. So if she lost her place on the teleprompter, she had it written down and in front of her anyway.

Why are telepromters always breaking down? You hear about this frequently, why do the machines suck so bad?

If one watched the coverage on PBS, you could see the teleprompter for much of the speech. No malfunction.

It's more hype to show off the vitriol of the vp candidate. Hopeless lies, just like the rest.

As I explain here, you can actually watch the C-SPAN video and see the teleprompter functioning properly.

If one watched the coverage on PBS, you could see the teleprompter for much of the speech. No malfunction.

It's more hype to show off the vitriol of the vp candidate. Hopeless lies, just like the rest.

The lie is designed to make the speech her own, instead of her just reading a re-casted speech originally written for one of the other possible VP choices.

The GOP is great at these tone-setting lies; remember the lie about how Clinton staffers vandalized computers, prying "w" keys from keyboards after the election? It's a little lie, why even bother to tell it, why even bother to rebut it, but they stack up.

What a miracle woman! I expect her to find a cure for all forms of cancer any moment now.

She had pieces of paper in front of her.

Are all these people congenital liars?

Yes.

She quite obviously lost the thread at some point midway, and I mentioned it to the fella I was chatting with on the phone. (I do live shows for a living.) My sense was that the guy with the prompter control scanned ahead or behind by accident -- which not infrequently happens, given that prompter operators aren't generally selected for their intelligence. You could see her suddenly missing words looking at her printed script on the dais, rather than the plexi screens.

However, it seemed like she was sync'ed up within a minute or so. And the OTS shots showed that that the scroll was tracking with her speech again.

What I thought was funny was that Erickson's headline said that she had "winged" the speech, which would indicate that she had made it up as she went along. And while it's fairly impressive to be able to make up a good speech while speaking, it's far less impressive to memorize a speech, particularly when they're somebody else's words. As I suggested at my blog, it's like these people have never seen a stage play before. Even child actors can memorize lines.

I think what's really going on here is that these people constantly mock Obama for using a teleprompter, so it was a bit of cognitive dissonance to see their beloved leaders doing the same thing. And when the McCain people told them that she didn't need it, their tiny hearts leapt with joy. Finally, a memorizer they can believe in.

It's just another accomplishment to list. They're up to:

Talk with or without teleprompter
Contend strongly in beauty pageants
Bring home pork
Kill moose
Return to work 1 to 3 days after childbirth
Updos, baby, updos!

see Fred Hiatt, WaPo

Putting Words in Palin’s Mouth

There was a flutter of attention when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told a group of Post reporters and editors yesterday that his team was having to rework the vice presidential acceptance speech because the original draft, prepared before Gov. Sarah Palin was chosen, was too “masculine.” While we all wondered to ourselves what might make a speech masculine or feminine, no one batted an eye at the underlying revelation: that the campaign was writing the nominee’s speech before knowing who the nominee would be.

[snip]

So when you watch Sarah Palin tonight, expect to learn something about how well she handles a Teleprompter. Expect to learn something about the McCain campaign’s assessment of its political standing with women, or working families, or social conservatives. Whether you’re learning what Sarah Palin really thinks or feels is anybody’s guess.

-Fred Hiatt

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/09/putting_words_in_palins_mouth.html

The second I heard this story, I knew it was BS. It was so transparently Rovian. What was my second clue. "Republican sources say..."

It's a strange pattern which we see repeatedly, take an already good story, then top it off with an even "better version of the truth".
Think about it, there was the Cindy McCain adoption story. Great as is, but all of a sudden they need to throw "at Mother Theresa's insistence" into the mix. There are hints that the "Cross in the Dirt" story from McCain's POW times may have been fabricated as well. These aren't the "Thanks but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere outright lies. These are ones that just make you scratch your head....

It takes speakers a little while to get used to teleprompters.

Wasn't Palin a local TV news sports host for a time? Reading teleprompters would have been her job.

Hmmm - not as big a story as I first thought. She didn't keep up with the teleprompter a few times, so she looked to her print copy - which differed in a few spots.

I'll give her a few points for good cover - but it's hardly "winging it".

Otherwise, where she failed in substance she scored in delivery. Just what dismayed Republicans needed. The GOP reaction is no less than ecstatic.

Clearly it was working fine when it got to the "new-clear" lines.

You ask: "I wonder, though, why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically."

They seem desperate. The abuse of power scandal and the lies about her record leave her dangerously vulnerable. The "bridge to nowhere" could easily become...uh..."her bridge to nowhere." Don't forget a fringe party that hates America and pastors who a few years ago would have been called "agents of intolerance" by a prominent Republican whose name escapes me. The sudden embrace of unmarried teenage pregnancy must be producing a lot of whiplash injuries (otherwise known as cognitive dissonance) in the ranks of the faithful (in addition to Bill O'Reilly). Then add in dubious child-birth practices and a possible affair, and you have material for many National Enquirer stories.

Thus we get absurd claims of expertise (she's a foreign policy expert because Alaska borders Russia) -- and false claims of speech-making ability. And, in case all else fails, there is an attack on "elites" and "the liberal media." They are reaching.

There is obviously a lot of excitement on the right. They now have their celebrity. But I'll bet there are also a lot of puckered rectums.

If your last post has any widespread validity (that the speech didn't really play well with that great bulge in the middle), then perhaps they don't want to be giving the hard sell that she came up with all of that bile all on her own.

I mean, if she's focus grouping as a mean, sarcastic so-and-so, then I'd think you'd want to soften that image.

jus' sayin'

Which snarky comment to go with...hmmm..how about both!

1: As a college professor, I give about 150 "speeches" a year without using a teleprompter or a script. Sometimes I have a PowerPoint outline and sometimes i have a list of talking points. Is the bar so low now that giving a speech without a teleprompter some kind of great achievement. *I* could giver her speech with nothing in front of me with about a day to prepare.

2: She also walked both ways to the convention center...uphill...in the snow...carrying a dead moose she had just shot....[feel free to add more]

And as I explained last night, not only were there two, count 'em, two teleprompters, she had notes in front of her AND read ahead of herself several times and backed up. But who's counting?

They'll do just about anything to justify Nanooka of the North.

FYI: She played flute as her talent in Miss Alaska. Surprising.

We do have some babes on the Left:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Cornell

Republicans, if their lips are moving, they're lying.

Teleprompters are in such widespread use for one simple reason: they make giving speeches with the illusion of eye contact with the audience easier. I've used a teleprompter before. It is hardly difficult. And you always, ALWAYS have notes handy.

Same old GOP bullshit. Maybe they could get Chris Angell to teach her how the walking-on-water trick is done.

From Newsweek:

"When she talked about her pageant experience in an interview with Vogue, Palin said, "They made us line up in bathing suits and turn our backs so the male judges could look at our butts. I couldn't believe it!"

Isn't she endearing??

The telepromter was made in China. This fact proves beyond any doubt Palin's foriegn policy experience! Take that all you reality based tree hugging secular humanists!

They seem desperate.

There's a good reason for that.

that "obama can't speak without a teleprompter" has been a rightwing meme now for several months, and now it is beginning to bear fruit: it excuses the inept performances of the majority of the speakers at the republican convention and sets up a favorable (if you don't realize it's a lie) contrast between palin and obama.

the absence of any meaningful exposure of republican lies and hate speech by the media who have fully rejected their role as fact-checkers and fully embraced their role as stenographers is more damaging to this country than the lies themselves. without the media's complicity, the lies would never get teeth.

If she *could* give a speech with a malfunctioning teleprompter, the by osmosis she could also restart a human heart with a faulty defibrillator. This could come in handy in a McCain whitehouse.

The teleprompter business was the least of the lies.

Sarah claimed to have stopped the Bridge to Nowhere (Gravina Island). Flat out lie.

She said the gas pipeline would help solve U.S. energy problems. It won't even go to the U.S. It's destined in a decade or two or three for Canada's Alberta oil sands, to further the incredibly environmentally harmful extraction process which consumes huge gas reserves.

Her biggest lie could get her impeached. She and her family tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired and when one of her few good appointees, the Public Safety Commissioner, wouldn't go along with it, she fired him and hired a fundamentalist sexual harrassing small town police chief in his place to be her "Robert Bork" to do the dirty deed. Do people remember Archibald Cox and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus in Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre?" The Alaska legislature has hired an investigator to assess whether charges, including impeachment, should be brought.

Sarah claimed to be a "reformer," but she's done almost nothing to clean up the swamp of Alaska politics since being elected except to sign a weak bill that would have passed over her veto.

Sarah will be seen as the Pinocchio of U.S. Politics, taking the crown from Tom DeLay or Larry Craig.

Rush actually led with this tripe on his show today. (more or less)

why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically

More for the rubes. Apparently, there is a recurring meme in the wingnut-o-sphere that Obama cannot deliver a speech without a teleprompter. This ridiculous accusation was concocted to gull the rubes that make up the GOP base with the narrative that Obama is an empty suit.

So the lie that "Palin's so smart! She doesn't even need a teleprompter!" is set up to create a flattering comparison between the two.

(How do I even know about this crap? I need this election to be over, and soon...)

Bush Lover - You forgot to mention that she effortlessly translated the speech into perfect Aramaic while giving virgin births to twin Jesus's...and they were both playing hockey when they emerged. Yes, she's that good.

Erickson is an utter hack. He's been pushing the "Obama supports murdering infants" story to his listserv and his blog, and claimed that Democrats hate the flag because... some of the flags and signs from the Invesco rally wound up on the floor and were thrown away.

bystander hit the nail on the head. The point of this story is to knock the story about how the speech was written long before Palin was even announced as the VP pick.

They wanted to kill the correct meme that all she did was read other peoples words and ideas and she herself had little to no input on the finished speech.

One of the most underreported aspects of this convention is far more controlled each speaker is compared to the Dems. Rommey's speech was originally going to be given by the Gov of CA and was reworked and given to Rommey.

I know the Dems do the same thing, but I'm willing to bet that Gore, Kerry, the Clintons had their staffs (with their direct input) prepared their speeches and submitted them to Obama's people for approval and editting. Whereas at the Republican convention the speeches are given to the speakers in advance and they might be allowed a little leeway to personalize them.

Says a lot about their differing management and governing styles.

"that 'obama can't speak without a teleprompter' has been a rightwing meme now for several months, and now it is beginning to bear fruit: it excuses the inept performances of the majority of the speakers at the republican convention and sets up a favorable (if you don't realize it's a lie) contrast between palin and obama."

All you have to do is look at Obama's "quiet storms" speech in Milwaukee from a few days ago to confirm that this meme is trash.

I wonder, though, why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically.

I like to jokingly use the expression, "why tell the truth, when a lie will do just as well?" It seems the Replublicans have taken this to heart.

This is why the religious right is so big on putting monuments of the Ten Commandments everywhere - they need a constant refresher course, particularly on the "bearing false witness" part.

Steve,

Your reality-based perspective is crippling your ability to empathize. These people rush to mystical narratives -- or create them out of lies -- because their entires lives are dominated by imagined experiences. They don't see Jesus as a person who lived a long time ago, and they don't see God as a construct most human beings create when reason runs out of explanations.

THESE PEOPLE BELIEVE IN MAGICAL EVENTS AND FAIRIES AND ANGELS AND A WORLD NOBODY CAN SEE. THEY'RE NOT KIDDING. IF THEIR KIND OF RELIGION WASN'T SOCIALLY SANCTIONED THEY WOULD ALL BE IN A RUBBER ROOM SOMEWHERE, HEAVILY MEDICATED AND UNDER CLOSE OBSERVATION.

You must not ever forget this fundamental -- and fundamentalist -- difference bewteen you and them. You do not walk around all day believing in something that is not real. They do.

They really do.

I said it before and I'll say it again: a liar will continue to lie so long as the purpose for the lie has been met. One purpose of Sarah Palin's lies is to portray herself as something she is not. So far her lies have been partially, but not completely, effective in obscuring who she is. Lies become less effective when one becomes recognized as a liar.

To those who value the truth, the path seems obvious.

"I wonder, though, why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically."

There is nothing new about right-wingers making silly claims, except that Palin is so pathetically unqualified that they are forced to bring up very trivial matters. They are perfectly capable of making patently false claims about more important matters when the occasion arises.

IIRC, Clinton had a famous TelePrompTer miscue during one of his State of the Union addresses, where he had to speak off the cuff for awhile until it went back on. It solidified his reputation as a smart, engaging President. I suspect this story is designed to do something similar for Palin.

On WGN radio (Chicago) this morning, the host was talking with their politics guy (also a professor in the city somewhere, not a reporter) who was apparently located where he could actually read the teleprompter. He mentioned that she threw in a few lines of her own, but said nothing about any malfunctions or speaking unprompted. If that had happened, he would've mentioned it.

If you're going to lie, why lie about something that can SO EASILY BE CHECKED???

As others have stated, there was a camera behind Palin the entire time. Whenever the director of the convention coverage cut to Palin's back, you could see the teleprompter, and see that it was functioning fine...

But that camera was always running, and more than likely was ALWAYS RECORDING - whether it was to tape or a hard drive, everything that camera recorded (whether it appeared on TV or not) is saved SOMEWHERE. In fact, I'd bet a dollar that every camera in the room, especially those positioned onstage, were NEVER NOT RECORDING! Just in case a tragedy occurred, crazed protestor got onstage or something, they'd keep those cameras constantly recording to document whatever happened.

Sooooooo, let's go to the videotape.

If you're going to lie, why lie about something that can SO EASILY BE CHECKED???

Because they don't expect the so-called "liberal media" to check, they don't expect the so-called "liberal media" to call them on it if they do check, and they know their rabid base will dismiss the proof of the lie as just what you'd expect from the "liberal media."

The now infamous “Bitch speech” was completely substance free. Did not deal with any of the issues or give details of any plan it boasted. Reform?? How is that exactly? Reform what the Republicans created? They are already unwilling to advance any investigations into the current corruption they vow to reform or the contracts of fraud and abuse given to contractors in Iraq or the EPA’s behavior.

Most importantly, Palin did not write that speech and only showed herself to be a good actress. She revealed nothing of herself or anything she brings to the nation. Oversees a legislature that only meets 60days out of the year while parading herself as some sort of experienced executive is laughable. Got to be Mayor by a 600 to 400 vote? What a joke. Just as bad as McCain’s claim that he’s some sort of military expert because he was captured and held prisoner 40 yrs ago. Hell, that’s like saying “I know how to conduct battles …I was one of the first people killed in one”

Of course the corporate media claims the speech was a victory…what other choice did they have…to admit the speech was substance free and amounted to bitching out the other guy while complete exaggerating ones own abilities…and of course…McCain was a POW and we owe him the presidency. The press was obliged and prepared to herald Palin…they had no choice unless Palin just came out and drooled for 30min they would say she was a triumph. A triumph at reading a prepared speech practiced all week. What an ego to think herself qualified to be VP of our entire nation…one breath away from being president..yup yup yup.

Remember the "was that Air Force One" hoax?

Yeah, this is like that.
.

Everyone should know by now that there is simply nothing, no matter how big, small, embarrassing, transparent, perverse, whatever, that they won't lie about.

Lying when there's no need is an odd trait. It's usually associated with the children of alcoholics or abusive parents. The truth is just so painful that they develop an aversion to it on the premise that the truth is always a threat.

Maybe the truth is always a threat to this guy.

IF THEIR KIND OF RELIGION WASN'T SOCIALLY SANCTIONED THEY WOULD ALL BE IN A RUBBER ROOM SOMEWHERE, HEAVILY MEDICATED AND UNDER CLOSE OBSERVATION.

Uh, not in the US. Here, they'd be turned out on the streets to live under bridges and gibber at passers by.
.

I have been saying -- notice her eyes.

She never uses a teleprompter, unlike Obama, who is so clearly reading that he doesn't even know what he is saying.

Her eyes -- they are special. She is special. No prompting. No rehearsal. Natural. Her Eyes. Candid. Yes, definitely the eyes. They follow you all around the room. They never leave you. They haunt you. Become you. You find that you cannot live without them. When you go to sleep you see them. When you wake up, there they are. And they're hers.

Yes, McCain is a genius alright. Have you seen his smile? It stays with you, never leaves you. Never leaves him...

"why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically."

Because for Republicans lying is like breathing. No job is done until it has the added value of a lie attached to it.

Grand Moff Texan:

You're right, of course. I was think of another America. An American where the Christians don't control our politics, thus making it possible for us to get about the work of taking care of the poor, the sick, the mentally ill and the elderly. My bad.

Compulsive lying.

I wonder, though, why the right would run with this silly claim so enthusiastically

You know, that's the kind of naive question Kevin Drum would asking about various crap being peddled by the Bush administration back in 2003 or so.

I mean really, isn't the answer fairly obvious? The whole speech was designed to appeal to a group of voters who are desperate to have their biases and magical beliefs reinforced, by lying if need be. How do you think this country ended up in Iraq?

This reminds me of just after 9/11 and Bush was nowhere to be found. We got the official response from his spokeswoman. He was busy buzzing around the middle of the US on Air Force One going from air force bace to air force base.

When confronted by his rapid location changes, he could have just said that on advice of his military advisors the prudent thing was to stay on the move, which is not much of an imposition since Air Force One was designed to run the country from the air. But no, they had to make up a cock and bull story that there was a "credible threat" against the President. That was bull. Even the secret service said it was not true. So why make it up? Because they are pathological liars. They are forever searching for stories to aggrandize themselves. I suppose because they think their actual accomplishments are not enough to stand on their own. Sad.

Erickson used the anecdote to label Palin a "winner."

Wouldn't that make her a "winger" not a "winner"?

P.S. Do GOP pundits and talking heads EVER speak the truth?

Did they not think the speech was successful enough on its own?

Maybe it was a story crafted just in case the speech bombed. Sort of a cold war era "The brave heroic astronauts died in a horrible fireball, a possible sabotage scenario is investigated" press release. You know prepared just in case some contractor miscalculates the required oxygen and the astronauts spend hours on the radio begging for help Kursk style...

Either the "leak in case of fire" story leaked or someone figured... Hey a brave story is great but an even braver story is even better. (I hear she didn`t just toke on Ted Stevens, she fought him in a cage match to the death!)

Pretty soon the moveon camp can talk about how Historic Palin porkfighting story - not true
Historic McCain porkfighting story - not true
Historic Palin taxcutting story - not true
Historic McCain porkfighting story - not true
Palin mooshunting story - not true (*)

At that point the response to any telling of the POW history may just be... wow interesting story.

*) Hey give it two, three days, hunting licenses and gun registration records will be turned over weeks before people even start looking at say the TransCanada FISA foreign lobbying records involving pipeline levels of money