Wednesday, March 18, 2009

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.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"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."

Oh quite embarrassing, indeed, but apparently only to Ms Mary.

You seem angry about NOT spending enough taxpayer money to hire competent staff to load the teleprompter correctly and yet also angry about spending apparently too much taxpayer money to give due proper respect (you appear to claim is sorely lacking) to the tradition of celebrating one of Ireland's most cherished historical figures.

Seems to me the apparently great party (by the FAUX news description) was greatly honoring an Irish tradition.

Funny? Yes, really! Another great example of Mary not having much luck when it comes to presenting any logical point of view in her verbose posts.

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

What was that great neocon saying I heard so very many times? Oh yes, it was, "love it or leave it."

Do us all a favor Mary and do the later, in line with a another great saying, "the sooner, the better."

Mary said...

non quixote,

Since you are bent on making ad hominem attacks rather than adding to the discussion of the issues, you've lost your posting privileges.

Phil said...

THIS springs immediately to mind.

I'm Ron Burgandy?