SOTU: an outdated ritual

Once a year I'm cursed by agreement with George Will, this unhappy occasion being, as Will puts it, the "undignified ... unedifying ... unnecessary ... vulgar State of the Union circus." Said circus is, as you know, again coming to television screens everywhere tomorrow night, and again I'll swear I won't watch it, only to find myself cracking under the pressure of ritualistic civics.

The frequency of my curse is entirely George Washington's fault. His fellow framers constitutionally specified with no specificity whatever that presidents shall "from time to time" gloss over the actual state of the union, which Potus 1 interpreted as once a year. Thus it has been ever since. But it was Potus 28, Woodrow Wilson, who revived the monstrosity of oral glossings, dead since Jefferson, because, in his megalomaniacal mind, he knew better than Jefferson (as well as all the assembled framers, for that matter). Plus, the professorial Wilson could never resist an opportunity for hearing himself talk.

Yet Will, being both himself and priggishly Wilsonian, likewise couldn't resist in his SOTU-bashing column the opportunity of distortion through omission. He disparages this constitutional requirement as one merely of 17 words: "[Potus] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union." Though Will does not, Article II, Section 3 continues, however: "and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

It's those 14 additional words that make the SOTU address so exceptionally excruciating these days for those of us not yet willingly detached from reality.

President Obama will stand there tomorrow night, recommending a host of necessary measures to his House majority hosts of ideological nincompoops and for-the-fun-of-it obstructionists. However necessary, even these recommended measures will be artificially modest in scope, for the White House sees little point in bluntly asking, What is to be done? What should be done? What would any competent, responsible Congress do?  

I, for one, and for millions like me, believe that's a big mistake--all this false comity, emotional restraint, and programmatic modesty. At this presidential point Obama has nothing to lose and everything to gain by simply letting 'er rip--by delivering a ruthlessly honest assessment of the unnecessarily decrepit state of our union, and demanding accountability for its legislative sponsors.

Now that would give George Will something substantive to chew on, and better yet electrify Obama's increasingly indifferent base. But of course the president won't go there, and Will and I will be left with yet more reason to belittle the SOTU circus.

Prove me wrong, Mr. President? Please prove me wrong.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

I seriously doubt he could do that. If he did he would be forced to offend the left as much as the right. On the right he must castigate for demented policies that actually harm the government and people of the United States. To the left he must puncture their foolish dream of retiring at the top of the world economic heap and forever keep that position unearned. No I seriously doubt that would end well.