CRITICS FEAR OBAMA TELEPROMPTER WILL LEAD TO ROBOT INVASION

March 27 2009

Washington, DC – John Kennedy had his brother Robert. George W. Bush had his father. Richard Nixon had himself. Throughout history Presidents have had confidants, people who had special access to the Oval Office and the Presidents ear no matter the situation. While one or two close people having such access to the most powerful person in the world may seem concerning at times, influencing policy, affecting decision making, confidants have long acted as an outside voice; a source of reason and a sounding board for what can be a very isolating job.

So far no secret confidant of the human persuasion has emerged for Barack Obama but in recent weeks tongues have been wagging over the President’s relationship with his Teleprompters. With talk of the President’s economic recovery plans, his overtures to Iran, his withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and his healthcare plans all drawing record low ratings, television networks and journalists are delving deeper and deeper into the President’s new relationship.

“Occasionally a President’s close allies are known publicly but they are generally kept quiet by the media, or at least they have been in the past. In today’s world that is more and more difficult to do but with the Teleprompter emerging as President Obama’s closest ally no one will have any need to keep things quiet,” said Scrape TV Political analyst Gabriel Kinsey.
“Obama has put his confidant right out there in the public eye which is in keeping with his philosophy of openness and transparency. Of course it’s going to draw a lot of attention and wry comments but it’s probably healthy for the President to have an outside voice.”

The Teleprompter has drawn a lot of attention in recent weeks, from a foul up with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, to its new appearance as a large flat screen at this week’s press conference, the profile of the once lowly Teleprompter has enjoyed a rapid rise to prominence in the national media. Some though call into question the young President’s almost exclusive reliance on the screen.

“The concern is that this Teleprompter is his exclusive source of exposition and among the many things a President must do, exposition is tops among them. Determining policy, outlining goals, those are all important things, but in the media age that we are a part of now your presentation is the most important thing and it seems one entity has complete control of that,” continued Kinsey. “Of course a teleprompter is an inanimate object that simply displays what humans decide it will display but what if something goes wrong? What if gives a speech meant
for say Iran but delivers it to Germany? There could be a massive international incident and that’s only if it’s a glitch. There’s always the possibility of the teleprompter gaining sentience.”

The idea of a machine gaining human-like intelligence has long been a crux of science fiction stories, such as this summer’s Hollywood blockbuster ‘Terminator: Salvation’ but to date no machine has been able to show independent thought or free will. The sudden appearance of a blog and two ‘Twitter’ accounts claiming to be from the Teleprompter itself has sparked fears that the device has come to life and may be influencing the actions of the President.

“The history of living machines in movies and books hasn’t been very good to say the least. Killing humans, taking over the world, these
aren’t ideas that we want being passed on to the President and we also don’t want someone with those ideas being so close to the Oval Office. We could be headed into very dangerous

times,” continued Kinsey. “We all know that the President made a special effort to
have access to his Blackberry so we know he is very closely tied to technology, one could say he can’t live without it. No doubt the teleprompter realizes this, and the sudden appearance of the blog and ‘Twitter’ account indicates some level of self realization. It would be irresponsible of journalists to not give this story massive amount of coverage.”

Neither Blogger nor Twitter had any comment on the participation of the Teleprompter, nor did their human ‘programmers’.   

Edward Bastil, Political Correspondent

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