Fox News: Palin’s ‘Telepalmer’ Notes Were A Clever Plot To Call Attention To Obama’s Teleprompter »
As ThinkProgress reported on Saturday night, paid Fox News contributor Sarah Palin was caught using “hand”-written notes during a Q & A session at the National Tea Party Convention this weekend. Ironically, during the appearance, Palin also criticized President Obama for using a teleprompter during speeches.
On Fox & Friends this morning, the hosts defended their colleague’s Telepalmer notes. Carlson suggested that it was a brilliantly clever plot to draw attention to Obama’s use of a teleprompter:
CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose. I think she did it on purpose, yeah. Because it’s an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter with a script written for you with every word in a sentence and here’s she’s just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes her look like she can just talk off the cuff and she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went out to give a big long speech.
DOOCY: I think she did it because she probably does it a lot. I do that all the time. [...]
KILMEADE: But to sit there and look at, and do the interview and look down at her hand, I think that is — like you said before, Gretchen — folksy, absolutely, down-to-earth, I can identify. But if you’re going to write on your hand, why not just say, ’staffer, hand me a card.’ And then it would be okay.
CARLSON: Nah, like I said, I think it was on purpose. But anyway, we we may never know.
Watch it:
Event organizers admitted the questions were “pre-screened,” but a Palin spokesperson said the former VP candidate had not seen the questions ahead of time. Still, as Huffington Post’s Stefan Sirucek points out, Palin’s “extra help” in front of a friendly crowd is especially ironic because Obama wasn’t using notes of any kind during a recent unscripted Q & A with House Republicans. Obama has also recently held several town halls, where he took questions from the audience and spoke at length without notes. http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/08/fox-palin-telepalmer/