quote:

Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'

CHARLOTTE - Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.


Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package. "We are over-taxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.

Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said.

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer - more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").


Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care -- twice. "Number one is that we are the only -- we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance," he said. A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. "Number two, you don't know who might end up being in that situation," he said, then carried on explaining further still.

<snip>

It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday's event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.


Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He apologized -- in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. "Boy, that was a long answer. I'm sorry," he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.


But, he said: "I hope I answered your question."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html

quote:

ORIGINAL: thornhappy

Presidential debates, or the health care debates didn't count?

Bush was almost incapable of speaking a coherent sentence without a prepared statement or the use of a teleprompter.  Obama can.

Teleprompters have been used by presidents for ages.  Why did this suddenly become a great evil under Obama?  It's one of the most common insults on the conservative blogs that I've read.