Friday Morning

Hmm. Seems like Trump's big 4th of July rally in D.C. wasn't the smashing success he wanted it to be nor quite the humiliating disaster his detractors wanted it to be. It almost doesn't matter because neither side would ever have admitted it wasn't what they hoped for.

Yeah, he said something stupid about airports. He says something stupid about something in every speech and it's never his fault. In this case, his authorized representatives — the ones who shouldn't be listened to when he changes his mind about what he said — are blaming the TelePrompter in some way. Maybe it was at fault or maybe Trump, as many have suggested, is just a guy who doesn't read so well or sometimes has no clue what he's saying.

I wish there was some Fair Play Law where, for example, if you were an Obama-basher who heard him make his famous gaffe about campaigning in "all 57 states" and said that proves he's stupid, a liar, a moron, etc., you had to either apologize or apply the same insults to your guy when he says Revolutionary War troops "took over the airports." They're about the same level of mistake. I don't think either man actually believed what came out of their mouths.

For that matter, didn't a lot of Trump fans once insist that the fact that Obama used a TelePrompter sometimes was solid proof that he couldn't utter a coherent word without one?

To those who've never used a TelePrompter: They're not as easy to read as you might think. There are basically two approaches, one being to try to read the words slavishly and never depart from the text that's there. The "up" side of that is that the guy or gal operating the prompter knows exactly when to advance the copy to the next lines so they're right there when you need them. The "down" side is that he or she winds up controlling the pace of your delivery a little more than you might like…and if you stray a bit from the script, you both may get confused about where you are.

Trump is real big at playing to the crowd. If you watch him when he's not "on prompter," when he's rambling, it seems like he'll suddenly sense "I need a big applause line here" and he'll jump to some non sequitur that does the job, then try to get back on topic. I doubt he follows the prompter closely, preferring to use the second method, which is just to use it for key words and phrases. The precise script may be there but he doesn't try to follow it exactly. And that's where he gets into trouble.

I don't think very many orators have ever used that second method successfully. It's like having your brain draw from two sources to deliver one speech. I never knew a great stand-up comedian who would try that. If they're being prompted, it's by cue cards with key words and not precise verbiage. If Donald Trump wants my advice — and you just know he's eager for as much of it as he can get — he'll try one or the other. And if he goes with the TelePrompter, he might try reading the script in advance.