On Friday I noticed that President Obama used a teleprompter when delivering his remarks on the economy in the East Room. I thought it was unusual because the East Room is a pretty intimate venue. I usually associate the teleprompter with bigger crowds and bigger spaces.

I can’t think of a time when President Bush used the teleprompter in the East Room, except for maybe a primetime address to the nation. Of course he didn’t particularly care for the teleprompter and didn’t look all that natural using it.

Working the prompter is an art all its own. With one clear panel on each side of the podium displaying text, the teleprompter is designed to help the speaker look at the audience, rather than continuously looking down at his speech on paper. But some speakers suffer from “prompter lock,” in which their eyes stay locked on one panel of the teleprompter even as their head shifts to the other. This looks awkward.

President Obama has no such trouble. He looks pretty natural using the teleprompter, although he did display a bit of the trademark tennis-match head shifting – back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

I was talking about this with a friend over the weekend and he mentioned that even on the campaign trail, Mr. Obama used the teleprompter pretty frequently. So I’m wondering why. The president delivers a heck of a speech and he thrives on audience engagement. I would expect the prompter to hinder him a bit. Yet apparently it doesn’t.

I’d be curious to know from our colleagues who wrote for President Clinton how often he used the teleprompter, and if he used it for routine East Room events like Friday’s remarks.