Tag: North Carolina

Palin Used Teleprompters to Deliver NRA Keynote Speech

Jon Ponder

Palin at NRA in convention in Charlotte with two teleprompters in view
Palin at NRA in convention in Charlotte on May 14, 2010, with two teleprompters in view
After sneeringly referring to President Obama as “a charismatic guy with a teleprompter” in February, Sarah Palin apparently required two of the prompting devices when she delivered the keynote address to the National Rifle Association convention in Charlotte yesterday.

It’s unclear whether she has used teleprompters in the recent past, and if so, how often — but in February, during her appearance before a tea party conclave, she was caught red-handed, so to speak, with crib notes written on the palm of her hand. Around that same time, during a Fox News softball interview, she said she didn’t want to be the leader of the tea bagger movement because, “It’s much bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter. It is the people’s movement. It’s about the people and I’m proud to be a part of this.”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, when she was the Republican vice presidential nominee, Palin was a serial user of teleprompters. We posted a gallery of photos of Palin using teleprompters at about 20 separate events on Pensito Review’s Facebook page .

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President Bush’s Response to Harry Taylor

Jon Ponder

Here is President Bush’s response to criticisms from Harry Taylor on April 6, 2006, in Charlotte:

THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to start off with what you first said, if you don’t mind, you said that I tap your phones — I think that’s what you said. You tapped your phone — I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that’s right. Yes, no, let me finish.

I’d like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I’m not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I’ll tell you why. We were accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn’t do everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do.

And there — out of this national — NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers — and we’ve got plenty of them in Washington — but they made this assessment that it was constitutional for me to make that decision.

I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like — to make sense, if we’re at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program that’s reviewed constantly to protect us.

Now, you and I have a different — of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer — answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.)