Winston Churchill waas an old-school badass who would not only memorize addresses, but write and rehearse conversations and repartee. Rick Santorum is a butthole-obsessed jumped-up car salesman with an untreated major neurosis and a middling IQ at best. Maybe you can see why the "unprompted" strategy worked for one of them but not the other.

In other news, of COURSE this is just a cheap, implicitly racist jab at President Obama. Has there been one single other thing in this entire Republican primary circus so far other than cheap racist jabs at President Obama?

Somebody please photoshop Abe Lincoln reading from wooden teleprompters.

Also, were Obama to memorize his speeches, conservatives would criticize him for wasting precious time memorizing speeches, when he should be presidenting, and decidering.

Shut up, Santorum! You're gonna lose this!

Best evidence for the need for teleprompters: Sarah Palin. She cannot even form a proper sentence without a teleprompter.

Santorum has been going full, overboard, batshit crazy for the last couple of days. This isn't the nuttiest thing he's said recently by far. He's getting desperate.

I'm not so sure that he's wrong here.

You see, I've always believed that "when you run for president of the United States", it should be illegal to wear slip-on shoes. I've always believed that.

I stand for smaller government! But more things being illegal if you're running for President of the United States.

I've always believed that "when you run for president of the United States", it should be illegal for any band to open for you that you have never purchased tickets to see (and actually attended the concert). I've always believed that.

Shit. unregistered @2 is right.

Santorum's gonna be up shit creek when he alienates the powerful teleprompter lobby.

there is a particular art to the evangelical sermon. the cadence, the buildup, the simple metaphors and similes, the timing of the pauses, and santorum has it DOWN. he's not stumping, he's preaching. dude's in the wrong line of work.

PowerPoint? The devil's slideshow. Stacks of index cards with notes written on them? Satan's lapel pins. Google? Lucifer's chalkboard.

Jesus... republicans are STILL trotting out the old teleprompter complaints??

@1 You failed to mention that Winny had a major speech impediment as a child, which is why he worked so hard on his public speaking skills.

You did mention that Ricky was born a moron, and has clearly not worked to overcome that obstacle. In fact, he appears to revel in his imbecility.

The racist part was a given.

I'm awarding partial credit.

I'd like to make it illegal for Republicans to speak UNLESS they were using a teleprompter and I had written the speech.

I think I agree with Santorum on this one. It is perfectly possible to run a modern campaign without the use of teleprompters.

I suspect that he is merely afraid of a Ron Burgundy-esque mishap. You know that son of a bitch Ron Paul would trick him into reading "Go fuck yourself, San Diego" off of the teleprompter.

@16 With a smile. Don't forget that.

It's all those devious little ones and zeros. The devils digits. 1010011010. Streaming down that wire!

The teleprompter display is another lie, misrepresenting the encoded message. Belief in displayed message is sort of a contraception of the mind. An abortion of thought.

Stand Tall. Open your mind to God. Throw back your head, open your throat and let the Words of the Lord flow forth!

Thus all True Believers speak in tongues, while Satin's black messenger is dictated to by technology's false prophets!

@3 -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis…

Wouldn't making it illegal require more government?

@20 Ding!