What could go wrong? Bloopers from past State of the Union addresses
Clinton: Ad Libber Extraordinaire
Credit: Obtained by ABC News
Nine times out of 10 a TelePrompter is a president's best friend, but former president Bill Clinton is the exception to the rule. Clinton's first address to the nation - much like his 2012 speech at the Democratic National Convention - included many last-minute additions and ad-libs. Clinton almost doubled the speech, adding an extra 2,800 words, according to the LA Times. The feat is impressive, but over time it has become confused with another speech Clinton gave largely by memory. That was less than a year later in an address to Congress on Clinton's health care plan when the wrong version of the speech was loaded into the TelePrompter. Clinton adviser Paul Begala recalled that moment in an interview with PBS' Frontline: "The poor guy is up there alone and naked on the most complex public policy issue, a fairly complex bill, and he went the first nine minutes without a note, and nobody could tell. It was phenomenal. Worse than that, the teleprompter screens are whizzing forward and backwards with last year's speech, trying to find it, and finally, they killed it all together and reloaded it. Nine minutes the guy went without a note, and no one could tell. It was a phenomenal--it's part of the Clinton legend."
