TOTUS mishap
President Obama’s speech at the National Academy of Sciences Monday morning hit a brief snag when Obama got ahead of his script.
Laying his plan for a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks – before realizing he’d already introduced them, earlier in his speech.
“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”
The audience, which gave the president a warm reception, responded with a quiet laugh.
TOTUS gives his side of the story:
… In this case, I’m sure it was Gibbsy’s fault. All these communications people want him to use notes, or memorize. Like he has time for that. Yesterday Big Guy played golf. That takes a lot of time and focus. He can’t be memorizing a speech and playing golf and being ready in case someone calls him about swine flu. This has always been the way it’s worked. Back in Illinois, when Big Guy was a state senator, he played a lot of golf and a lot of hoops with other legislators. This made him popular, and even though he didn’t know what bills were being introduced in his name, or what his staff was doing, he could just warm me up, load the text and speechify away. And he always hit it out of the park.
All I know is that we’re just lucky no one in the press or the public cares about these kinds of mistakes. Whew.
