Irish PM Brian Cowen and Obama's Teleprompter

That darn teleprompter!

There was an embarrassing teleprompter malfunction at the White House on Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON -- Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick's Day celebration at the White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just given.

Cowen was set to speak twice at the White House on Tuesday night because there were two different parties going on at the executive mansion. No matter — he would give the same speech to the two different audiences.

But Cowen was 20 seconds into his second address when it dawned on him that he was giving word for word the speech that Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Cowen stopped and looked back at the president to say, "That's your speech."

Obama laughed and returned to the podium to offer what might have been Cowen's remarks. In doing so, President Obama thanked President Obama for inviting everyone over.

Funny?

Not really.

Obama isn't having much luck when it comes to hosting foreign dignitaries.

There was the debacle when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife visited Washington earlier this month.

Obama really blew it with Brown.

Now, a teleprompter glitch makes Irish PM Cowen look rather buffoonish.

Obama certainly isn't personally responsible for the wrong speech being up on the teleprompter, but you'd think he'd be able to organize his staff in a manner that they could get it together and quit these embarrassing missteps.

Here's more on the St. Patrick's Day partying at the White House.

On tap for the evening's festivities -- which Obama described as "rambunctious" to East Room guests -- was green sparkling wine from a California vineyard.

The White House cocktail reception featured Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon from Northern Ireland and Maggie McCarthy, a traditional Irish dancer and musician from Cork, and the vocal group Celtic Thunder. The Shannon Rovers, the official pipe band of Chicago's St. Patrick's Day festival, also were set to perform.

Obama joked about the free-flowing bar and warned his guests not to wear lampshades on their heads in front of the cameras. He later went off his remarks to get laughs about Ireland's popular stout.

"Guinness tastes very different in Ireland," Obama said. "It is much better. You guys are keeping the good stuff for yourselves."

Did the taxpayers foot the bill for that "free-flowing bar"?

Taking a cue from Chuck Schumer, I think the partygoers should give the money back and return it to its rightful owners, the taxpayers.

I'm sick of paying for Obama's parties.