Nobody is allowed to criticise TheOne of course, so when his teleprompter failed last week and the supposed Greatest Orator Of Our Time floundered horribly it went largely unreported in the U.S. media. Courtesy of a Daily Telegraph article the video is on YouTube along with 9 other excellent gaffes by the new guardians of the free world. (TheEye didn’t get a vote in the matter, obviously)

It is of course far from the first time that he has fallen apart without pre-composed electronic assistance. Someone has even set up an excellent blog “written” by Baracksteleprompter.

This (probably) Photoshopped image is of course inaccurate as it shows his feet under the water.

If you missed Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” on the 19th then Michelle Malkin has a few things to say on the first (and possibly last) appearance of a sitting US President on a chatshow. Special Olympics bowling, eh?

So what, in these financially strapped times, did it cost to massage his ego on international television?

It costs $68,000 an hour to operate Air Force One. So, it’s 2,308 miles one way from DC to LA, so 4,616 miles round trip. At an average flying speed of 500 mph (on the high end of a 747) gives 9 hours and $612,000. Add the cost of transporting Presidential limousines, Secret Service staff and support vehicles, increased security at the Tonight Show studio, costs to the local and state government to provide local security, traffic control, etc. The US taxpayer has just been done for at least $1 – $1.5 million.

Even Tone wouldn’t have needed the two Blair Force One‘s that he ordered to make it to the really grilling interview he had on the Richard and Judy Show.