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enlarge Credit: LGF Hey, we’ve all made mistakes, but it takes a lot of work to come up with as many looney smears of President Obama as many on the right circulate including—Jim Hoft. This one is classic! Wingnut Blogger Jim Hoft Mistakes Closed Caption for Applause Prompt at Tucson Memorial Just when you think popular right wing blogger Jim “Dim” Hoft (Gateway Pundit) couldn’t possibly post anything more stupid than his last post, he finds a way to take it to the next level of numbskullitude. Today’s entry in the “Hoft Chronicles of Sheer Stoopit” has him trying to claim that the White House prompted the audience to applaud at the “Together We Thrive” memorial (with his usual taste and class, Hoft calls it a “pep rally”): If White House Was Surprised by Applause at Tucson Pep Rally… Why Did They Ask For It On Jumbotron? — That’s right. Hoft doesn’t understand that he’s looking at the closed captioning for deaf audience members. Wingnut Blogger Jim Hoft Mistakes Closed Caption for Applause Prompt at Tucson Memorial It is Gateway Pundit after all, can we expect anything more? But the stupid, it hurts. And tbogg finds that Pajamas media has jumped head first into the Jumotron conspiracy. Ed Driscoll, who is blogs at PajamasMedia because his wife does some legal work for them and having him there it’s like childcare for her, jumps on the Hoft Stupid Express : I suppose the excuse du jour will be that these weren’t stage directions, just merely the assumption that the president would have to pause while the expected hosannas rained down upon him. But presumably, if you put “APPLAUSE” into the text on a Jumbotron, a sufficient number of people in the audience will do just that. Which leads to this amusing exchange with people who took the time to type slowly to Ed in teh hopes that he would understand: # 1. Gadfly It’s closed captioning for the deaf. January 15, 2011 – 2:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply # 2. Ed Driscoll Really? The deaf can’t see the people applauding all around them? January 15, 2011 – 2:14 pm Link to this Comment | Reply # 3. Stephen Sherman “For the deaf” who are watching it on TV. It’s called closed captioning, Ed. It doesn’t appear at the event, but is added to the TV signal through the wizardry of modern technology. January 15, 2011 – 2:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply * Ed Driscoll How can it “not appear at the event” when it’s in a photo of the Jumbotron shot at the event? January 15, 2011 – 2:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply # 4. Peg Please remember that this was also broadcast to the overflow audience who were not in the auditorium and that a professional captioner is not going to be thinking “Well, they can SEE the clapping so I don’t need to include that”. They are trained to write in or etc. They write exactly what they hear. If you want to tell for sure or not if it was “scripted” then go to the part of the speech where Obama says “Gabby opened her eyes.” According to reporters, that section was NOT in the original written speech. So, if this were actually captioned live, it would be included. If it were scripted, it would not be included. It’s really not that hard to investigate this. Did anyone bother to call the University and ask to speak to the person who is responsible for captioning and find out the facts? Stupid is contagious.