Are the theatrics of calling out to special guests in the balcony something the American people really want? It’s childish so it’s hard to imagine a nation of adults could take it seriously… yet there it is year after year: a show spectacle a la Broadway of staged events that are meant to be perceived as smoothly spontaneous. Why can’t the state of the union be an intelligent and sober recounting by the chief executive of the state of the nation with his/her prescriptions for the year? Part of the problem is that the US has no royalty to perform ceremonial functions of state, so the President has to take part in meaningless rituals such as staging White House Easter egg hunts and pardoning of turkeys at Thanksgiving. There needs to be a separation of the theater of the White House from the hard business of day-to-day governing and policy-making. The State of the Union has become another proverbial tree-lighting ceremony without real substance.
The Republican “response” was hardly any better. In fact, it’s hardly a response at all, it’s a pre-scripted (i.e. written before the President’s address) speech that offered no riposte to POTUS, but instead offered the opposition party’s policy papers. Why can’t we have a serious debate? Why does it have to be so puerile with petty bickering? Why can’t some of these politicians act and speak like adults? The US Republic is “led” by substandard actors reading from scripts that pander to a public that is apathetic, ignorant and too often beholden to imagined spectacles on their view-screens.
When will there be an adult in the house?
Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150122.htm
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