Rush Limbaugh went on the air accusing President Obama of reading the Irish Prime Minister’s speech on St. Patrick’s night at the White House. He essentially ridiculed him for doing it.
I was there and I can tell you it didn’t happen.
Limbaugh said that Obama read part of Cowen’s speech, and that he ended up thanking himself for throwing the party.
Not true. What happened was this:
Cowen went to the podium at the party and began reading a speech - it turned out to be Obama’s. The Prime Minister caught himself and laughed it off.
When it came to be Obama’s turn, he played off the Cowen gaffe and started with something like "I’d like to thank President Obama..." before laughing . The room cracked up.
He was not reading from the Teleprompter or making a foolish remark, as Limbaugh claimed. He was merely being funny, and putting his guest at ease.
Limbaugh quotes various British papers as claiming Obama was reading Cowen’s speech. The British papers are wrong – what a surprise.
Limbaugh is a liar.
The bigmouth loves to talk about the American "drive-by" media. He is a drive-by shooter himself when it suits him. He needs to get his facts straight.
What was strange about the White House event was that both men read their speeches twice - once in the East Room and once in the West Room, because of the overflow crowd.
Limbaugh rants that because it was a party, Obama should not have read from a Teleprompter. Yes, it was a a party, but a very important one, where the Irish leader and American leader were speaking publicly together for the first time to a large Irish audience. It was important that everything was done right, names remembered and highly charged terms relating to Northern Ireland and other issues were spelt out correctly.
As proved by the ridiculous over-reaction to this minor incident by Limabugh and others, the caution was well-founded.
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