About That Speech

Okay, I'm back in the White House after one of my more embarrassing moments. These kinds of gaffes have been happening all too frequently, and I have my suspicions.  Usually, Big Guy will be reading too slowly or my operator - who has only to keep the text moving across my screen at a reasonable rate ... it's not rocket science - won't be paying attention to the text and will be scrolling too slowly.

Here is a transcript of our conversation today:

Big Guy: "In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here.” 

TOTUS: "What? Why are you looking at those file cards? Who gave you those file cards? Ah crap."

Big Guy: "Go ahead. Move it up. 

TOTUS: "WT*! I am moving it up. When we get back to the office, we need to have a sit down ..."

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.