Is it Time to Get Rid of the State of the Union?

In recent years, I have come to the conclusion that the NFL should abolish the Pro Bowl once and for all. It has become an embarrassment. True, no team wants to see a star player injured in a meaningless game, but flag football? Are you kidding? Now they keep thinking of new ways to save this old dog like skills contests. Pretty soon someone will come up with the bright idea of NFL all-stars in a swimsuit competition.

But the thesis of this piece is not football or the Pro Bowl. That’s just a lead-in. After watching last night’s masked ball at the Capitol and Joe Biden’s performance, I now question why they even hold a State of the Union address in the first place.

I’m not going to try and pick apart Biden’s speech and how he acted last night. I’ll let the pundits do that. While Fox News says it was appalling (which it was), CNN and MSNBC are talking about how he “nailed it” or “hit it out of the park”. I would rather address the question of why we need to continue with this useless exercise in nothing.

Officially, the reason for holding the State of the Union is that the president is required to come before Congress regularly and “report” on the “state of the union”. Actually, he or she does not legally have to make a personal appearance. They could just “mail it in”, so to speak by actually sending Congress a written report. But in the age of television and mass communication, the speech is more of an opportunity to “reach the people”. 

Of course, inserted into every president’s speech is the claim that “the state of the union is strong”. Kind of like, “ten bells and all is well.” How about, “ten bells and ten million new illegal migrants are running around. Lock your doors”?

Biden aside, these speeches, played out at great expense and much fanfare, have come to feature the same old routine. The President enters the chamber and takes 10 minutes to reach the podium while dozens of brown-nosing senators and congressmen and women mob him, pat him on the back, and take selfies. The same applies after the speech as the President is making his way out the door, which for Biden, is enough of a challenge as it is.

The speech itself is full of all the good news about what the president has accomplished in the past year, real or imagined, and proposals for this or that (the so-called laundry list). Last night, Biden reached an all-time low of absurdity when he talked about the reduced amount of chips snack food companies were putting in their bags and lauded (Pennsylvania Senoator) “Bobby” Casey’s bill to fix that glaring inequity. There was also a reference to the size of Snickers bars! Nixon had his “Checkers speech”. Maybe this will go down as Biden’s “Snickers speech”.

In addition, these speeches feature more than their share of partisan politics, attacking the other party and making the usual political talking points. Last night was no exception. Along with all the negative references to “the previous president” (Trump), Biden even issued an ugly, thinly veiled threat to the Supreme Court justices over the abortion issue.

And those interminable applause lines that stretch the length of these speeches far beyond what they would appear to be on paper. How many times did we see poor Kamala Harris jump to her feet to clap her hands while Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sat there with a quizzical look on his face?

I may be hard-hearted, but I’m getting tired of seeing these shoutouts to various individuals who are invited to attend and be saluted by the President for this and that. In this case, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson flew in from Sweden to mark that country’s admission into NATO.

And there were the usual partisan displays by the opposition parties, in this case, the Republicans. Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupted to challenge Biden to “say her name” (Laken Riley, the young lady from Georgia who was murdered, allegedly by an illegal alien criminal from Venezuela). Biden, true to form, answered her challenge by saying, “Lincoln Riley”  (a well-known college football coach). 

So what purpose is served by these speeches? Are there any real discussions about issues of the day? Are there any important announcements made by the President?  Last night Biden announced that he is ordering the military to build a port on the Gazan coast to facilitate aid deliveries to the Gazan people. I wonder how many military people will be attacked and killed in that process. If it comes to pass, I will predict that the attackers will not be Israelis. More likely, it will come from Hamas or the Houthis. Gratitude is not exactly their long suit.

But I digress.

Unless the State of the Union is drastically altered to make it worthwhile and a positive event, I say scrap it altogether. Few could argue that this spectacle gives support to the claim that the US Congress is the “greatest deliberative body in the world”. Quite the opposite, I would say. Frankly, I don’t know how they could reform this event to make it worthwhile-unless the President came out and gave the speech in a swimsuit. In Biden’s case, he would just think he is back home on the beach in Delaware.

You heard it here first.