If there is a bigger waste of time in American political life than the State of Union Address, its hard to think of what it might be. The quadrennial political conventions come to mind, but since they only happen once every four years they are slightly less annoying than this annual display of pomposity and pagentry where we listen to the President make promises that will largely not be kept while his party members cheer wildly and the opposing party sits on their hand.
Thomas Jefferson, as usual, had the right idea. He refused to address Congress in person and satisfied the Constitutional requirement that the President give an annual message to Congress by sending in a written report. For the next 112 years, every President followed Mr. Jefferson’s example. Then came Woodrow Wilson who, in addition to screwing up American foreign policy, reintroduced the kingly address to Congress and thus it has remained an annual tradition since 1913.
Just because the State of the Union is on television, though, doesn’t mean you have to watch it. Ann Althouse has her own suggestion on how to revive Mr. Jefferson’s tradition:
I know a perfect way to force the President to deliver his speech in writing, in my little world. I leave the TV off, and I read the text in the paper. You can do it too. So let George Bush have his fun tonight making a roomful of erstwhile blabbermouths sit there and listen to him for an hour and perform the tedious clapping/not clapping ritual. And skip the commentators. You don’t need to know the precise number of times they clapped and the lengths of the various clappings.
Personally, I will probably be following Stephen Green’s live-blogging of the speech, especially since he will apparently be playing this game while he does it.
Writing on the same subject, George Will talks about what is needed in the State of the Union, and what we’ll actually get.
Tonight, on the 1,050th day of the Iraq war (the 912th day of American participation in World War II was D-Day), the nation needs an adult hour, including a measured meditation on overreaching, from the Middle East to Medicare’s prescription drug entitlement. But in State of the Union addresses, rarely is heard a discouraging word.
The Democrats have already been heard from. In their “pre-buttal” to the State of the Union, they promised, among much else, that, according to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, if they come to power, “every American will have affordable access to broadband within five years.”
Which tells you something about the state of the Union
Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin is compiling State of the Union wish lists from bloggers. My personal wish is that Bush would revive Jefferson’s practice, but in today’s media age we know that will never happen.
Technorati Tags: State of the Union, Politics, Bush
