MORE THAN SEW SO

“Oh no, not the State of the Union address.

Is there a more excruciating hour on television? (If we’re lucky, it’ll last only that long.)

It’s not the speech (scheduled for Wednesday) that bothers me. Nor is it the speaker. We pay presidents to keep an eye on things, so an annual report seems apporpriate.

But I can’t stand the spectacle that goes with the speech: the incessant applause by supporters; the studied lack of applause by opponents; the awkward standing, sitting and crouching ovations that result from the participants trying to guage how much enthusiasm — or the lack thereof — to display for the TV cameras.

What kind of audience is more interested in its own performance than that of the guy they’re supposed to be listening to? An audience of Congress-creatures, of course.

I watch only because I have a sort of morbid fascination with the strangeness of these people. Do they honestly think that their constituents, beset by real problems, are inspired by calculated displays that signal nothing so much as a resolve to keep bickering until the end of time?

On behalf of a weary nation, I say: Cut it out.

When the drafters of the Consitution wrote that the president periodically report on the State of the Union, they obviously didn’t anticipate television.

They couldn’t have known that their instructions would one day result in the entire Congress — not to mention the Supreme Court, the chief exective and the cabinet — would be on display before a national audience.

If they had, the Founding Fathers would have thought better of it, I’m sure. Congress is dispayin enough when puttering around in its workshop. You certainly don’t want all 535 members gathered with nothing to do except preen, posture and put on dominance displays, like an exotic species of bird.

Need we suffer this foolishness every year? Well, no.

The Constitution merely says: “(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.”

It doesn’t say it has to be in person, nor does it say it has to be annual.

George Washington and John Adams spoke directly to Congress, but Thomas Jefferson thought that too “monarchical” and sent written correspondence. Good move.

Presidents followed his lead until Woodrow Wilson decided to make it a speech again in 1913. Eventually, it became an annual event, larded with more and more ritualistic nonsense.

I think President Barack Obama ought to try a new apporach, if only to spare citizens the spectacle of their daffy representatives interrupting him with a silly clapping game or harrumphing for the cameras.

Can’t he just speak from the Oval Office, like he does on other occasions?

Can’t he address an audience of normal people in a small town somewhere, with Congress watching on television like the rest of us?

On Wednesday night, he’ll make the usual pronouncement that the state of the Union is sound. The best evidence of that will be that in continues to thrive despite the antics of those in attendance.”

Joe Blundo, “So To Speak”, Columbus Dispatch, 1/26/10