It’s the big topic of the morning and the centerpiece of lots of national discussion, for good or ill. Last night, President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address in front of a joint session of Congress and a variety of other dignitaries. The feedback to that speech, as well as to the official Republican response and the Tea Party Express reaction, is still being determined. One thing is for sure; President Obama’s speech sounded awfully familiar. As it turns out, Obama’s State of the Union address was chock full of throwback phrases to multiple other State of the Union speeches. Even the two-headed response to the State of the Union isn’t that unusual, given the multitude of reactions to Bush administration SOTU addresses (usually from future political darlings like the aforementioned Barack Obama or future disgraces like John Edwards).
These days, it’s tough to ask people to give up a night of television to pay attention to politics. It might be time to fold the State of the Union address into one of Obama’s many TV guest-starring roles rather than give him a 2-hour infomercial all of his own. Then again, in the cable generation, was anyone really forced to watch the State of the Union? The networks were forced to carry the speech as a news item, as were various cable news outlets, but standard cable channels were business as usual.
The first network to stop carrying the State of the Union will get a drubbing from pundits, but not in the ratings. You can believe that.
Tags: President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, SotU, State of the Union, Obama State of the Union, politics, speeches, American politics, Paul Ryan, Michele Bachmann, Tea Party Express, Tea Party, State of the Union response, Republican response to state of the union address, speeches