President Obama was so tedious during his first prime time press conference last week that his staff wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So they’re looking for ways to yell at him – in the middle of his remarks.

… the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. “It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it,” says the adviser.

If they’d had the hookup last week, they could have been sending short missives such as “Do you realise you’ve been answering this question for five minutes?” or, “Please, not Helen Thomas!!!”

The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.

Imagine, this guy got the job because of his perceived brains and communication skills?

Using a screen is nothing new for Obama; almost nothing he said in supposedly unscripted townhall events during the presidential campaign was unscripted, down to many of the questions and the answers to those questions. Teleprompter screens at the events scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and information he could use to answer questions.  “It would be the same idea with the podium,” says the adviser.

This story is no where in the news. What would the media coverage be like if this was George W.? We don’t have to guess – the press went wild with speculation four years ago when President Bush had a bulge in his jacket during his debates with John Kerry.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it’s safe to say he wasn’t packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Yet the media seems disinterested in the fact that the brilliant one, the Great Communicator II, can’t talk if it’s not written down for him.

Obama had a teleprompter set up for his remarks last week, before taking questions, but the White House couldn’t use the teleprompter for anything but the remarks, because the journalists were so close to the screens. Further complicating matters, teleprompter copy can’t be easily updated in real time, in a setting like a White House press conference.