- Jul 21, 2010
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Another gem from Charles P. Pierce:
The State Of The Union: The Worst Night Of The Year
"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Majority Leader, thank you for inviting me here tonight to discuss the state of our union. The state of our union is strong, and it's all because of me, motherfkers, and no thanks to your sorry, wrinkled white asses. I did everything I could do to pull the economy out of the shallow grave your deregulatory frenzy and the two-term nitwit who preceded me dug for it. You stood there like squeaking eunuchs and blocked everything you could, and a narrow slice of the electorate gave you virtually unprecedented control over the entire national legislature. I don't care. Your party has sold its soul and lost its mind. I'm not going anywhere. So I'm'a gonna do what I goddamn well please, because the state of our union is strong, motherfkers, and it's all because of me. Nice to see you all again, though."
Unless the speech begins that way, I really don't care about it. 'Fi were king of the forest, there wouldn't even be a State Of The Union address, much less the full-dress exercise in political Mardi Gras that it has become. (Another thing for which we can thank that overrated maniac, Woodrow Wilson.) 'Twere up to me, presidents would go back to sending letters up to Capitol Hill, and they would use the present three-day run-up as kind of an all-star break from being president. Beer pong at Camp David! Now, though, thanks to the fact that television -- and especially its cable-news aspects -- is the index patient for institutional elephantiasis, there is nothing more inconsequential (and marginally loathsome) than the SOTU, and my use of the stupid acronym embarrasses me. It is just another television show. It's an Event for the sake of being an Event, the White House Correspondents Dinner in Founding Father drag. Worse, it's just another television extravaganza. It has more in common with the Super Bowl than with anything else, beginning with the fact that the SOTU (Make it stop!) Pregame Show began at about seven o'clock this morning, and that the Postgame analysis will go on well into the whiskey hours of the early morning. The State Of The Union and its attendant ballyhoo is now the clearest evidence we have that American self-government, and the politics that are at its heart, has become an ongoing piece of audience-participation performance art that has very little to do with the actual power in the country, and whose wielding it, and for what purposes. The only real mystery to the thing any more is whether the president delivering the speech is Punch or Judy.
More at the link:
The Event That Is The State Of The Union Is Just Another Television Show - Esquire
The State Of The Union: The Worst Night Of The Year
"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Majority Leader, thank you for inviting me here tonight to discuss the state of our union. The state of our union is strong, and it's all because of me, motherfkers, and no thanks to your sorry, wrinkled white asses. I did everything I could do to pull the economy out of the shallow grave your deregulatory frenzy and the two-term nitwit who preceded me dug for it. You stood there like squeaking eunuchs and blocked everything you could, and a narrow slice of the electorate gave you virtually unprecedented control over the entire national legislature. I don't care. Your party has sold its soul and lost its mind. I'm not going anywhere. So I'm'a gonna do what I goddamn well please, because the state of our union is strong, motherfkers, and it's all because of me. Nice to see you all again, though."
Unless the speech begins that way, I really don't care about it. 'Fi were king of the forest, there wouldn't even be a State Of The Union address, much less the full-dress exercise in political Mardi Gras that it has become. (Another thing for which we can thank that overrated maniac, Woodrow Wilson.) 'Twere up to me, presidents would go back to sending letters up to Capitol Hill, and they would use the present three-day run-up as kind of an all-star break from being president. Beer pong at Camp David! Now, though, thanks to the fact that television -- and especially its cable-news aspects -- is the index patient for institutional elephantiasis, there is nothing more inconsequential (and marginally loathsome) than the SOTU, and my use of the stupid acronym embarrasses me. It is just another television show. It's an Event for the sake of being an Event, the White House Correspondents Dinner in Founding Father drag. Worse, it's just another television extravaganza. It has more in common with the Super Bowl than with anything else, beginning with the fact that the SOTU (Make it stop!) Pregame Show began at about seven o'clock this morning, and that the Postgame analysis will go on well into the whiskey hours of the early morning. The State Of The Union and its attendant ballyhoo is now the clearest evidence we have that American self-government, and the politics that are at its heart, has become an ongoing piece of audience-participation performance art that has very little to do with the actual power in the country, and whose wielding it, and for what purposes. The only real mystery to the thing any more is whether the president delivering the speech is Punch or Judy.
More at the link:
The Event That Is The State Of The Union Is Just Another Television Show - Esquire
