Already? Can it really be time for my annual whine about how much the SOTU speech sucks and how I hate it and how no one ever listens to me about how sucky it is and how I hate it and stuff?
Actually, I don't feel that strongly about it. It has just become a bit of a Rubber Hose tradition to complain about this shit every year.
The speech does suck though, don't get me wrong. You can click through the whine cellar to see all the reasons it sucks. But the bottom line is that the event has evolved into a nothing more than political theater. Where the President proposes a bunch of stuff that we never hear about again, while really just throwing out a lot of lines to see if he can get people in the audience to clap for whatever he is saying. Meanwhile, the opposition will try to show their disapproval by acting like a bunch of assholes. Then we will have to suffer through the official GOP response, which will suck for much of the same reasons except that it will have even less substance than the President's speech. And because it is not in front of a live audience, the applause lines are even more transparently ridiculous.
Lost in all of this is the alleged purpose for the speech. At least the original purpose as set forth in the Constitution. Article II, Section 3 requires that the President "from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." If anyone really cared about that, the President would just send Congress a written report. (That is what used to happen. Then the powers that be discovered they could turn it into a political circus, and the politicians just love a good circus!). I don't know what exactly the President will say tonight (nor do I particularly care) but I doubt it will be a serious report of the actual state of the country.
The whine cellar: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Actually, I don't feel that strongly about it. It has just become a bit of a Rubber Hose tradition to complain about this shit every year.
The speech does suck though, don't get me wrong. You can click through the whine cellar to see all the reasons it sucks. But the bottom line is that the event has evolved into a nothing more than political theater. Where the President proposes a bunch of stuff that we never hear about again, while really just throwing out a lot of lines to see if he can get people in the audience to clap for whatever he is saying. Meanwhile, the opposition will try to show their disapproval by acting like a bunch of assholes. Then we will have to suffer through the official GOP response, which will suck for much of the same reasons except that it will have even less substance than the President's speech. And because it is not in front of a live audience, the applause lines are even more transparently ridiculous.
Lost in all of this is the alleged purpose for the speech. At least the original purpose as set forth in the Constitution. Article II, Section 3 requires that the President "from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." If anyone really cared about that, the President would just send Congress a written report. (That is what used to happen. Then the powers that be discovered they could turn it into a political circus, and the politicians just love a good circus!). I don't know what exactly the President will say tonight (nor do I particularly care) but I doubt it will be a serious report of the actual state of the country.
The whine cellar: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
