The whole Obama pushback on “she reads off the teleprompter well” is particularly ridiculous considering the reports that the teleprompter continued scrolling during applause breaks, sometimes running ahead of where she was in her delivery.
Beyond that… didn’t some obscure state legislator from Illinois use a teleprompter when he gave some big speech in Boston in 2004? Was the response to that guy back then, “well, he can read a speech off a screen, big deal?”
UPDATE: Campaign Spot reader Jay in Texas writes in:
The problem with the whole teleprompter argument is that the entire speech was about her life.
When she said that, as a mother of one of those troops, she wanted McCain as Commander in Chief, it doesn’t matter who typed in the words. She wasn’t just the reader; she was the mother of one of those troops.
When she talked about attacking corruption in the Republican party, she wasn’t merely the speaker; she was the one who attacked corruption in her own party.
And when she spoke of the special love required for a special needs baby, she didn’t just deliver the speech.
She also delivered the baby.
He’s absolutely right. Obama could have spoken the same lines, and delivered them well, but without “walking the walk” as well as talking the talk, it would be… well, “just words.”