Fournier!

Remember Ron Fournier, the partisan that nearly took a Senior Advisor job in the McCain campaign, but instead decided to go be the DC Bureau Chief for the Associated Press?  You know, the objective wire service?  He's doing a bang-up job.  Here's Fournier take on last night's White House press conference.

What kind of politician brings a teleprompter to a news conference?

A careful one.

President Barack Obama took no chances in his second prime-time news conference, reading a prepared statement in which he took both sides of the AIG bonus brouhaha and asked an anxious nation for its patience. [...]

One of the few times he summoned raw emotion came after a reporter demanded to know why it took him so long to express outrage over the AIG executive bonuses.

"It took a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

Even better, he likes to have it up on the teleprompter.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is presented as an "analysis" piece.  Just like his "analysis" of Clinton's convention speech was to count the number of times she used a variation on the pronoun "I."  The answer was in the teens.  You'd think, if that were interesting analysis, the same would be the case of McCain's speech - where he used the word "I" itself over 100 times.

And once again, we've got the AP parroting the Republican talking point of the week.  It's simply amazing that they're trying to make this stick.  They think they can paint the guy who writes with surpassing eloquence, went through 27 Democratic Debates, then another 3 with McCain, as someone who cannot think without the teleprompter doing it for him.  They make this case after Bush.

Astonishing.