State of the Union

All the Constitution says – and it says so in Article II, Section 3 – is, “He (the President) shall 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.” That sounds simple enough. And for a long time, it was simple. Before 1913, the custom was for presidents to send Congress a written such report. After 1913, they customarily delivered it verbally in person, and since 1966, such an oration has been televised in the evening. And it has increasingly become more complicated since then in our Age of Television, until it has become one of the most hallowed of American political customs.
It has also become one of the silliest. We just had the annual observance of this event*, and at that time I humorously (at least I thought it was humorous) called it the “State of the Onion Address”. Now I shall peel back each of its layers for you, not unlike an onion. If you don’t laugh, you may cry, because we are all doomed by these goons in Washington. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s proceed from the beginning.
In the first place, the State of the Union address, as it’s currently done, is probably the most bone-headed idea imaginable from a national security standpoint – and the people in Washington know it. Why, everyone in our government’s line of succession (with the possible exception of the last guy on the list**) is gathered in one building at one time. I still have not figured out why no evil-hearted personage has yet tried to take out all of those very important people at once.*** But it is just this possibility that has given them the bright idea of telling at least one person in the line of succession to stay home that evening just in case something goes boom. And then they hope the person they selected would make a competent, if not quite popularly elected, replacement president.
But let’s turn now to the actual plan of attack on such evenings when the President gives his report to a joint session of Congress. The members of Congress and the distinguished guests (which can range from the Supreme Court judges and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Vice-President’s third cousin twice removed or the little boy who sent the President a letter last Tuesday) all get there first and mill around for a while. Then the awaited moment arrives – the Sergeant-at-Arms opens the big double doors to the House Chamber, steps forward, cups his hands around his mouth, and screams, “Mr. (or Madam) Speaker – The President of the United States!” This is always my favorite part, partly because I’ve always found it a touch humorous and partly because it’s the only true thing spoken all evening. But I digress. When this vociferous announcement is made, all the members of Congress and the distinguished guests abruptly stop their hob-knobbing and milling about and erupt into a huge cheer as the leader of the free world walks in. Now is the time for the members of Congress and the distinguished guests to hug, kiss, hand-shake, back-slap, and generally chew the fat with the most powerful person in the world. And such is what happens as the President makes his long way up the aisle to his podium.
Once he reaches the podium, behind which sit the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, the President stands, smiles benevolently, and, still amid the hubbub, awaits the next step – which just happens to be that of the Speaker announcing, “I have the honor of presenting to you (or some such thing like that) the President of the United States!” At this the members of Congress and distinguished guests erupt anew into a huge roar for their featured speaker. This I have never understood. The members of Congress and distinguished guests must have a short attention span or ADHD, or both, because the Sergeant-at-Arms just said basically the exact same thing not ten minutes ago. The President ought to be a man who needs no introduction – but on this night, of all nights in the year, he apparently needs two. But as redundant and inefficient as that may be, that is the custom of our hallowed Republic, and I shall do nothing to disturb it out of its place, or we’re all doomed.
Once the roaring has stopped, the President now has a chance to begin his speech. Strangely enough, he does not begin by introducing himself directly, for apparently another such introduction is not needed. Rather, he gets right to the point – and he can’t afford not to, for he has much to say on a night like this. Customarily, he not only describes what he believes to be the state of our Union, but he also delivers to Congress a long laundry list of things which he hopes they can help him accomplish in the coming year. This is never without controversy, and it is always an interactive process, as I shall describe to you at once.
You see, our government has always been composed of at least two competing parties, and all of them are accounted for in the chamber on such a night like this. Very often the competing parties never agree on anything, including the weather, and their passions don’t take a back seat just because the President is speaking. In fact, the State of the Union speech represents a unique avenue for each party to collectively express itself to the other (and the two viewers by television usually join them, albeit in a more vicarious fashion). Invariably, as the President speaks, the party to which the President belongs, with very few if any exceptions, will agree with what he is both stating and proposing. To show their solidarity with their leader, all the members of the party stand as one and cheer loudly whenever the President makes a point which they consider to be particularly strong, and they also hand-shake, back-slap, and generally congratulate one another in the process for the particularly rare form that their dear leader seems to be in tonight.
While this is going on, there is always a competing and contrasting party, who also must give voice to their opinions and emotions. While the President’s party stands and celebrates a potent zinger, the opposing party usually sits on its hands, with each member wearing an expression suggestive of that which they would wear if their mother-in-law announced (unexpectedly or otherwise) a two-month visit. The emotional divide between the two opposing parties is thus completely evident to all viewers, and it makes for entertaining theater, depending on which party you sympathize with. The only exception to this is when the President makes some more neutral but praiseworthy remark on which it would be simply ghastly for any red-blooded American of any party to sit and not cheer; in a case like this, all members and guests present rise and cheer as one. The two reactions can also switch around on each other, as in the case when the opposing party cheers sarcastically when the President makes some statement or other which they feel strengthens whatever opposing argument the opposing party maintains.
Any reasonable American watching this will quickly come to conclusion that it is quite annoying to listen to a speech that is cut short by applause every two minutes, if not more often than even that. And so it is. But I have come to the conclusion that such applause is quite needful. After all, if there were no applause until the end, the time of the speech would be cut in half, and everyone present or watching via television would probably fall asleep as if the President were telling a bedtime story in a monotone. And since we simply can’t have that, we must have something to keep us awake and engaged.
Is it really necessary, now that we have discussed the general format of a State of the Union speech, to discuss the actual substance of such a speech? If so, only a general mention is in order. The truth is that there is often very little truth in such a speech. The President will often claim that the “state of our Union is strong”, even though in his very speech he proposes to pile on as much massive debt to the already unpayable national debt as he possibly can, in the process endangering the very fiscal health of the Union he claims to serve. If that weren’t enough, the proposals contained in the speech are usually nothing more than idealistic pipe dreams that, more often than not, get cut down to a more pedestrian size once they meet the realities of real life and the legislative process. Still, on this night of all nights, it is the right and privilege of the President and his supporters to dream big dreams, and of his and their detractors to guffaw smugly at the very thought. And so it happens year after year.
The speech, contrary to what some may believe, actually does end, after which the President shakes some more hands as he makes his way back whence he came. It is at this point that my least favorite part happens. It has nothing to do with the President or any member of the halls of government. Rather, it has everything to do with the network news anchors, who feel it is their duty to repeat what we just heard, as if we did not hear it at all, after which they try to tell us what we are supposed to think about what we just heard, even though we were asleep through half of it and didn’t really enjoy or agree with any of it. Perhaps for some a review would be good, since they may have just been awakened by the sudden absence of a lulling monotone, but for the rest of us such commentary quickly amounts to nothing more than more needless hot air.
At least in recent years, it has been a custom with the opposing party to send out one of their own to give a formal response to the President’s speech. Now, this response is indeed a speech, but quite miniature in comparison with the one that was just given. It has to be, for if it were not, the Union would not be able to bear up under the strain of not one but two of these events in one night. Usually it is given somewhere other than in the House chamber, sometimes in an entirely different state. But it is still given, and very few people besides the obligatory news people even bother to tune in. After all, we reason, if the responding politician and his party were such hot stuff, wouldn’t he and they have given the speech we just witnessed?
And thus we have taken a short jaunt through the spectacle that is the State of the Union address. I hope it has been for you a few minutes of your time well-spent. But I’m not betting on it.


*Author’s Note: Nit-picky readers may retort that, in fact, we did NOT “just” have a State of the Union address, that it was in January and this is now March, and that, if we were to go by the author’s sense of time, we will likely be reading soon about last Christmas as if it were last weekend. The author retorts back (just as firmly, if not quite as smart-alecky) that he did in fact begin this article when the event in question was still fresh in everyone’s mind, but that, due to other pressing duties, he has not gotten around to finishing his original idea until now. However, he adds with a significant tone that he possesses, among other things, a rather longer attention span and memory than some in today’s society. The author sincerely hopes that his offering can still be considered sufficiently relevant.

**Author’s Note: I may have to look it up, but I’m pretty sure the last guy on the list of the line of succession is the head janitor at the National Museum of Natural History. I’ve been there before, and I can vouch for the fact that there are a lot of ordinary-looking employees there who look like they know far more than they’re telling. I may be wrong – but I’m just sayin’.

***Author’s Note: Some readers may be of the opinion that this would not be a bad thing to attempt, as it would clear out the halls of government and allow us to start afresh. But I am not of this cynical turn of mind, and I am not here to participate in such ugly and partisan thinking.