As part of the speech to the Air Force Academy:

Then, not content to leave without a jaunty ad lib, Biden noted that heavy winds were gusting through the ceremonies. One of his two teleprompters had toppled over. Alluding to the jokes of Obama’s reliance on the speech-facilitators, Biden added, “What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his teleprompter is broken. What will he do then.”

Stammer, hem, and haw, of course. The President isn’t actually all that great an orator – well, more accurately, while he can give a pretty speech he’s not all that great at giving memorable ones. It’s that cool detachment thing that he’s so lauded for; POTUS is rarely particularly engaged in what he’s saying, which means that his listeners have to supply the emotional resonance themselves. That’s one major reason why people rarely remember actual lines from his speeches.

I could be very harsh at this point, but I’ll be nice and just say that this level of not-caring also means that it’s harder to ad-lib when things go wrong.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.