If you have to explain it

Chuck Asay has a cartoon up that says not only is he an idiot, he's an asshole. No surprise there, I guess. After beating up President Obama for his completely ordinary use of a teleprompter (say, here), he now excuses Sarah Palin's palm pilot by comparing it to Obama's speech-making. So the teleprompter is suddenly o.k.? (No, are you kidding?)

Conservative pundits like Asay have to pretend to believe that Palin's inability to remember three points without notes (including a cross-out that suggests someone told her at the last minute that tax cuts are more popular than budget cuts) is actually more reasonable than Obama's use of a teleprompter for a full-length speech. Not just equally reasonable, because they want to be able to continue to flay Obama.

A double standard would at least be a standard. This is nothing better than IOKIYAR.

The teleprompter meme has got to be the stupidest conservative talking point ever. Anyone who has ever seen Barack Obama respond to uncanned questions can plainly see that he has mastered the material in a way that Ronald Reagan and Duhbya never did - and Palin just as plainly never will. (Dick Cheney, the most dangerous authoritarian to hold high office in my lifetime, did have mastery of his talking points, so maybe I should be careful what I wish for.)

Yet wingnut TV pundits look straight into their teleprompters and give their soundbites about Obama's reliance on ... the teleprompter. You'd think they think their audience is too stupid to know.

Shouldn't attempts at humor at least have to make sense?

Anyway, here's a better way to fight back:

Click image for full Steve Benson cartoon