Seriously, she does. Not only does she pronounce the word “a” slowly and distinctly, like it’s the answer to a multiple-choice question, without linking it to the words before or after, and not only does she sometimes put little pauses between each word (“it’s . . . America’s . . . basic . . . bargain”) or in inappropriate spots (“it’s the same old . . . song”), but she often puts odd stresses on words, seemingly at random: “too many of our kids never learn as they should”; “we see far more opportunities than threats”; “fight back against those who would drive us apart.” Toward the end of her speech she began to seem a bit more natural, but for most of it, she sounded like a machine that had been programmed to synthesize speech and was still learning the fine points. Her husband and President Obama are much better at sounding like they aren’t reading from a script.