THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
WAS AN EXERCISE IN POLITICAL MAGIC
I’ve never much cared for the State of the Union Address. It’s a pointless dog-and-pony show that’s far off the mark of what the founders intended when they required the President to make a yearly report to Congress.
I’ve also never liked the idea of an opposition-party reply. SOTU is the President’s event (all those dogs and ponies notwithstanding). I think it’s unseemly that a spokesman for the out-of-power faction gets to leer earnestly into the TV camera and say, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” — which is basically what they always say, regardless of which party makes the SOTU reply.
Far better if they just stood up and called the President a liar to his face. Like the Brits do, yelling back and forth across that big table on the floor of Parliament (of course it all sounds very gentlemanly when it’s done in a proper, upper-class English accent).
