Conservatives think it’s just so very hysterically amusing that President Obama uses a teleprompter. Which is weird, not least because if they couldn’t get the nation to give a rat’s ass about a Democratic president getting oral sex, what on earth makes them think anyone even only half as nuts as themselves cares about a teleprompter?

Anyhow, they think it’s all very funny. Yesterday, urine dampened the crusty collective lap of the Right Blogosphere in hilarity over an incident involving the visit of the Irish Prime Minister to the White House, where the teleprompter accidentally displayed Obama’s speech to Brian Cowen, the highly rumpled Columbo-esque Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister); Cowen began to read it, and then realized something was wrong. And then Obama came back to the podium, and amid laughter, spoke the first line of Cowen’s speech! Wow! Incredible! And, uh, that’s it.

It’s not the sort of thing that, you know, matters. But, again: wingnuts, pee, lap. Or else: CHAOS IN THE WHITE HOUSE! And that last link comes complete with the thoughts of the Fox N’ Friends gang whooping it up at the pee-slapping comedy of it all. Watch it. You’ll thank me. (NOTE: You won’t actually thank me.)

After they got done giggling, our conservative friends got around to discussing Why This Is Serious Stuff (which is where it actually starts getting funny). For instance, one of the Fox N’ Friends gang (I refuse to learn their names, but it’s the dweeby halfwit one… you know, uh, that one) sagely worries: "What if the electricity goes out?" Which would be a good point, it it weren’t stupid (if the power goes out, the televised speech is over whether it’s on a teleprompter or not). In the Internetty dregs, The Rubber Undies Wearing Goober informed us that the episode proves that Obama is not very articulate at all, and claimed that the video I embedded above proves it. (NOTE: Video proves exact opposite. Video also shows Obama can pronounce the word "Taoiseach.")

Of course the Junkie Sex Tourist who got the most mileage out of this nothing is Rush Limbaugh, who provides us with a transcript of his remarks on the subject, wherein he brags incoherently that he never uses a teleprompter. This is, remarkably for him, actually true, and is supported by eloquent remarks like "What’s he talking about? I’m sorry, the teleprompter. Let’s JIP. No, never mind. Never mind." Among the odder claims the JST makes here is that the White House event was a "party," so it’s weird that Obama even needs a teleprompter! Right; a foreign head of sate came to the White House just to get blasted; it’s unheard of for the president and a visiting head of state to exchange prepared official statements. Shazam!

But the best part of all this is that the source for all this hi-larity is an article in the London Times, which, if you thought was a serious newspaper, shows you haven’t been reading it. (Headline for the same reporter’s account of Obama’s appearance on tonight’s The Tonight Show: "President Obama uses Jay Leno show to wriggle out of economic crisis." Right.) Anyway, for the Times, as for Limbaugh, the punchline is that when Obama went back to the podium after the screwup with Cowen, he screwed up himself! Omigod!

As a laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium, the script was belatedly switched over to the Taoiseach’s text – leaving Mr Obama inadvertently thanking himself for inviting everyone, to further laughter. "First, I’d like to say thank you to President Obama!" the President said.

Except it doesn’t make sense to think that Obama was once more led astray in a wacky fashion. He had already given his remarks and didn’t need the teleprompter anymore. What really happened can be detected by, say, reading a more complete account:

When Cowen rose to speak, he began by welcoming us to St Patrick’s Day at the White House – which seemed an odd thing to do given that it was not his house.

“We begin by welcoming today a strong friend of the United States,” he said. Then he stopped, looked first at the teleprompter and then at Obama. “This is your speech,” he said to roars of laughter and applause. “Who said these things were idiot-proof?”….

When the Taoiseach was finished speaking, the president stepped up to the microphone and, copying his guest’s opening line difficulties, said: “First, I’d like to say thank you to President Obama . . . Happy St Patrick’s Day, everybody.”

Yes, the president was joking. Again: Shazam.

It really is hard to overstate how trivial this incident is, insofar as it tells us anything about Obama. But it says a lot about "conservatism" — nothing we didn’t already know, but still. Namely it says that they are either fools or liars or both. And it also says that their screechings and gibberings are becoming increasingly self-referential, inwardly driven, and bizarre. The key point is that if you’re not in their odd little universe, whether you’re an Obama fan or kind of skeptical or whatever, you won’t know what the hell they’re talking about when it comes to teleprompters, or why it even matters, particularly when they’re trying to make a claim that is refuted by, well, objective reality perceptible to normal humans. Say what you want about him, Obama is simply not inarticulate. I mean, like, duh.

But the most telling evidence that they’re out to lunch with this one, the real proof that they’re totally bananas in running with it, is that they got Maureen Dowd to buy into it, which is always a good sign that the sky in your world has just turned a lovely shade of puce, or perhaps has gone totally plaid.

(For added fun happy times, the JST repeated the bizarre story that there is a Liberal Plot to rename St. Patrick’s Day "Shamrock Day," weirdness that I wrote about here. Warning: link leads to an account of wingnut stupid so potent, it may cause blindness or death.)