Scripted speeches.

Slick advertising and choreographed stage shows.Political talking points being repeated ad nauseam.It's the environment that political handlers, image-makers and especially the speechwriters thrive in during presidential campaigns every four years.When it comes to campaign rhetoric, the political conventions are the Super Bowl, as both parties bring out their heavy hitters in an all-star lineup designed to pump up the party faithful and bag those crucial undecided voters. It's refreshing to see there are still a few great orators, like Condoleezza Rice, the former Secretary of State, who spoke brilliantly without a teleprompter at last week's Republican convention.For someone with the brains and integrity of a Rice the first female, first minority, and youngest Provost in Stanford University history speaking without a teleprompter is not a big risk. For politcians with the intellects of vice president Joe Biden or former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it's a much more scarier adventure and a roll of the dice for their Democratic Party handlers.It is during those impromptu moments, when there is no teleprompter to feed the scripted words, that we get an idea of the values and ideology driving a speaker. In Pelosi's case, a Waterloo moment occurred in 2010 when she uttered those now infamous words concerning the House dealing with Obama's health care bill: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."In Biden's case, the gaffe master of the universe delivered a one-liner in Athens, Ohio, during the 2008 campaign that would make any of his public elementary school teachers wince: "Look, John's (McCain) last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs."President Obama delivered his most regrettable quote in this campaign during a non-teleprompter moment in Roanoke, Virginia on July 13th. His comment that "You didn't build that" about American entrepreneurs not building their businesses became the cornerstone of this year's Republican National Convention.It was not the first time Democrats have had to backtrack. At this week's Democratic convention, the party received a barrage of criticism for removing the word "God" and naming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in the party's platform.The delegate vote to put the two items back into the party platform proved an embarrassment to the Democrats on Thursday. Just hours before President Clinton's keynote speech, convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa had to call for three voice votes. The platform change required a two-thirds delegate majority to pass, and after the third voice vote, the nays appeared to win. But Villaraigosa announced that the change had passed, prompting a chorus of loud boos to echo throughout the half-filled arena.An Obama campaign official covered for the president by saying that he personally requested that the "God" and "Jerusalem" references be reinstated.But that raises a question as to who is in charge and really leading the party. Doesn't the president, as leader of the Democrats, have the final say in what is to be included in the party platform?The platform mistake painted Obama and the party into a corner. If the president really didn't know what was in his own platform, then he's negligent or seen as out of touch.But if he did know or even had a personal hand in authoring what was in that party document, then his omission of "God" and "Jerusalem" begs for a deeper answer, raising new questions about the religious and philosophical ideology guiding this president and influencing his actions.By Jim Zbickjzbick@tnonline.com.