NBC 'Today' Show Panel Rushes to Obama's Defense After Santorum 'Cheap Shot'
On Tuesday, following Rick Santorum's call for politicians, like
President Obama, to stop relyi
ng on Teleprompters for their public
remarks, NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer allowed a liberal panel to rip
into the Republican candidate for daring to criticize Obama.
Attorney Star Jones contemptuously proclaimed: "Doesn't he have anything else to talk about?...You're
running for the presidency of the United States and you're going to
whine because he's a better Teleprompter reader than you are? Oh, please." Correspondent Savannah Guthrie chimed in: "It's silly....It's a cheap shot, it's an easy laugh."
Guthrie
was puzzled by the critique: "I don't know what they're trying to say
about Barack Obama. Are they saying he uses the Teleprompter because
he's not intelligent and can't articulate himself without a prompter? I
don't think there's any evidence of that. Even his critics would say
it."
Advertising executive Donny Deutsch observed: "The problem Santorum has
is look, throughout history there are some times you speak great
extemporaneously and sometimes from a script and it's not – by the way,
there would be no Today show if you guys were not reading from the
script." Lauer joked: "That's not unnecessarily true."
Here is a transcript of the March 13 exchange:
8:13AM ET
(...)
MATT LAUER: This weekend at a campaign appearance, Rick Santorum, one
of the GOP presidential candidates, said he would like to see – and I'm
paraphrasing here – it to be illegal for anyone running for president to
use a Teleprompter. Basically, saying that if you're running for
president, people should hear your words, not words that have been run
through a focus group or written by someone else. How do we feel about
this?
STAR JONES: Doesn't he have anything else to talk about?
LAUER: Well, how do we feel about what he's calling for?
JONES: Oh, please. I mean-
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: It's silly.
JONES: It really is silly. And like I said, doesn't he have anything
else to talk about? You're running for the presidency of the United
States and you're going to whine...
GUTHRIE: It's a cheap shot...
JONES: ...because he's a better Teleprompter reader than you are? Oh, please.
LAUER: He's going after Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, both have been
use – known to use Teleprompters, as have almost all politicians.
GUTHRIE: It's a cheap shot, it's an easy laugh. Both sides do it, okay?
The Democrats love to make hay of Romney tying his dog to the top of
the car back in the day. But I don't know what they're trying to say
about Barack Obama. Are they saying he uses the Teleprompter because
he's not intelligent and can't articulate himself without a prompter?
JONES: I don't think so.
GUTHRIE: I don't think there's any evidence of that. Even his critics would say it.
LAUER: Go ahead, Donny.
DEUTSCH: It's very simple. He's trying to play to his strength. The
thing that's made him appealing – it sometimes gets in his way – is that
he's from shoot from the hip, he's real, he's genuine, and he's
basically saying, "Hey, the other guys are not smart enough to do it
without it." The problem Santorum has is look, throughout history there
are some times you speak great extemporaneously and sometimes from a
script and it's not – by the way, there would be no Today show if you
guys were not reading from the script.
LAUER: That's not unnecessarily true.
[LAUGHTER]
(...)
-- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.
