Like most of you, I watched President Obama’s recent address to the joint session of Congress. Right now it’s all history all the time. Regardless of ideology and ballot preference, most of us wanted to see how the newly-minted, transformative chief executive did – even though such speeches are traditionally heavy on themes and light on specifics.
And we wondered collectively if the atmosphere of grim reality would induce candor to a fault – or would the speech be sufficiently leavened by optimism? Basically, would the finest presidential orator of our times be every bit as convincing as he needed to be?
And like most of you, I also got caught up in the traditions, the orchestrations, the choreography and the political gamesmanship. Starting with who’s sitting with the First Lady who will earn those presidential shout-outs and who will have those primo spots in the handshake line when President Obama is introduced?
Then it was on to noting applause lines. And how many standing ovations? How many will sit out the other side’s standing ovations? How many, if any, genuine bi-partisan responses beyond pure protocol will there be? Who will be paying more attention to political Twittering than to attention paying? What color pantsuit will Hillary be wearing?
But such asides, ultimately, don’t detract from the speechmaker. They are cut-aways to audience reactions to what the speaker has said.
But here is what truly is distracting: Having the vice president and the speaker of the House sitting behind the president and very much in the TV frame. It’s a time-honored tradition whose time should no longer be honored. Even if you like Joe Biden, and a lot of folks do, and Nancy Pelosi, and a lot less do, their presence is a distraction – and a disservice to the speaker. Your eye is too often diverted. It just is.
Republican partisans will mock Pelosi for her up-and-down theatrics and her blink-a-thons. Biden reins it in enough to look more like a statesman than a cheerleading flunky. But as a VP rule of thumb, it’s better to err on the side of not looking bored by the man who chose you.
We’ve had a House-cleaning. Now it’s time to re-arrange the furniture.
I can remember Speaker John McCormack behind John F. Kennedy looking like he should have been at a Moose Lodge. I remember Carl Albert behind Richard Nixon and wondering if he hadn’t been in the “Wizard of Oz.” The mind wanders.
Between applause lines, Denny Hastert seemed likely fixated on the post-speech buffet, and Dick Cheney always appeared on edge until he was satisfied that there had been no last-minute changes added to Bush’s copy.
The state-of-the-union speech is one of our better traditions. Its context is historical. But its backdrop is histrionic.