February 18, 2010, Obama is an empty suit/celebrity meme (in the form of Obama = Captain Teleprompter) being bandied about by all hat no cattle conservatives was still worth mention.

The Conservative Political Action Conference opened Thursday morning in Washington, and one leitmotif has emerged as an early favorite: noting that President Obama likes to use a teleprompter when delivering a speech. It was mentioned by David Keene, the head of the American Conservative Union, in his introductory remarks; by Stephen Baldwin, of the famous Baldwin brothers, as part of an attack on Mr. Obama; and by Marco Rubio, the Tea Party-backed candidate who is challenging Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican senatorial nomination in Florida. Mr. Rubio is clearly a star of the gathering here.

He offered a riff on why it was such a good thing that Washington was shut down by a snowstorm last week. “And the president couldn’t find anywhere to set up a teleprompter to announce new taxes,” he said to laughter.

via CPAC Speakers Mock Obama’s Teleprompter – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

What was missed by most of the people at CPAC still have no substantial plan, inspiring rhyme or coherent reason to deal with the challenges our country faces. So Republicans ridicule Obama for using a teleprompter, like every President since they were invented. Republicans call certain Senate procedures “unprecedented” even when they know damn well they used the same methods to pass bills around slimmer majorities. Republicans also claim every policy Obama wants to implement is some ism related to tyrants of yesteryear, even though his policies like health care reform match GOP policy proposals of the last 20 years.

So while they talk in circles, this President works. In just over a year he has taken a huge first step towards strengthening Americas social contract with its citizens. If you listen to Republicans, they still say the sky is falling, but not many people want to visit the losing locker room.