Intently. Fingers crossed.
That's how I will watch Biden give tonight's State of the Union speech.
What he says won't matter. What matters is how he says it.
This is a job interview.
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| 2023 State of the Union. |
All presidents give the same State of the Union speech.
We already know what will happen. I could write a news story now. The only problem with that story is that it would be about the irrelevant thing. Not the important thing.
The House chamber will be full. There will be a little chatter by TV commentators about who is not there. Perhaps the Supreme Court members this time. Perhaps a couple of GOP House members. A voice will shout out "Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States."
There will be the applause, then handshaking on the slow walk to the podium, and after a tedious ten minutes of this, the speech. The president -- and this is true of every president, Republican and Democrat -- will then give a speech that is predictable and too long. He will list five, seven, ten, maybe more accomplishments, the so-called "laundry list." His party's members will stand and applaud.
Then he will switch to the future, the "wish-list" part of the speech. There will be a dozen or so of these aspirations.
The president will insert cameos of some good Americans seated near the president's spouse.
The speech will end with a rousing summation of patriotic can-do optimism. More applause, a slow exit, and then a switch to a panel of commentators who rehash the speech.
That is the template. Fill in the blanks. No one remembers the lists. Is there a single reader who can remember any part of Biden's 2021, 2022, or 2023 speech? Or the speech of any other president? If someone stands up and shouts, "You lie!," as someone did to Barack Obama, people will remember that. That wasn't in the script. People will remember that Trump had an ailing Rush Limbaugh stand up in one of the cameos, because Limbaugh was such a divisive figure. People might remember the banter between Biden and House Republicans mid-speech when Biden appeared to have taken them up on some compromise offer. That wasn't in the script, either.
No one remembers the script.
What matters is how Biden looks and sounds. Will he look old and tired? Will he stumble physically or verbally? Will his voice sound strong?
This is a job interview and wellness check. Joe Biden is the candidate for a potential extension of his contract. We already know his resume. This is the "let's talk with the candidate face-to-face" part of the hiring process. We are alert to cues. Do we still like this guy? Is he up to the job for whatever it entails for the next contract period? Is there anything "off"? Any red flags?
Democratic partisans and commentators are bunkering, toeing the company line, saying that fears of Biden's age are pointless and wrong-headed. He's our guy. Support him. They complain that Democrats validate Republican talking points if they talk about his age and manner. Look at his successes! The resume of accomplishments speaks for itself! But a resume is never enough. The job candidate needs to prove himself in the interview.
I will be doing what I suspect most Americans will be, including the readers of this blog who think talk of Biden's age is transgressive and dangerous. We will all be looking at Biden and making a gut decision: Is this guy up to the job for the next five years? Will other people think so? That's all that matters.
Tonight Biden will be performing a well-known play, delivered year after year by presidents. We know the script. The only question is how well he can deliver the lines.
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11 comments:
Yes, we all know that Biden no longer looks or sounds young and vigorous. Of course, the same is true of his opponent. Last weekend, Trump’s rapidly increasing dementia was on full display. For example, he called MAGA the “greatest movement…maybe in the history of any country, even Argentina. You know, Argentina, great guy. He’s a big Trump guy. He loves Trump. I love him because he loves Trump.” He also referred to the U.S. as the United Stage, called it “a nation that’s no longer respectered,” and made an assortment of odd noises: ““Diiiiing, boom. This is me, [unintelligible] bing!”
Hopefully the SOTU won’t be nearly that bizarre, except for the usual apelike sounds coming from the R side of the peanut gallery.
It's as if the country is destined to be afflicted with a tumor, but we get to decide whether it’s benign or malignant. That should be a no-brainer.
I heard "fiery" and "forceful" on the news channels as descriptive expectations, doubtless from administration sources. For his sake, I hope Biden doesn't try to meet those expectations by speeding up his delivery, fulminating loudly but half-intelligibly like Grandpa Simpson. Worse would be contrasting resorts to the fabled Creepy Whisper. Worst of all, needless to say, would be a major brain fade or gaffe. He should simply do his part steadily, display a sense of humor, and let MTG and her fellow louts in the Trumpy crowd earn any negative headlines.
Hmm.
I wonder why TFG isn't delivering the republican response?
Maybe TFG isn't up to the scrutiny.
Given what they are probably dosing Biden up with at the moment, I probably should have invested in coffee (or maybe amphetamine) futures.
Or maybe tranquilizer futures for the day after given the chances that Biden will do or say something unfortunate.
The State of the Union is schizophrenic. What we hear from Biden may be standard script, but it’s relatively reality-based. Then we get a dire alternate reality from a whack job who thinks he’s present that convinces half the electorate their lives suck, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Anybody who still believes a word he says (i.e. the GOP) is as big a whack job as Trump. That’s what happens when they let idiots and madmen do their thinking for them. The MAGA movement is just the modern version of Limbaugh’s dittoheads.
...whack job who thinks he's PRESIDENT...
Sorry.
Biden nailed it.
He owned the republicans tonight.
And the republican response..... that was a big whiff.
Biden owns the republicans tonight, the republican response is a snooze and TFG's social media platform experiences outages.
It's a good night for America!
Be careful. Biden knows where you live and, as shown tonight, he's not afraid to kick some ass.
I couldn't agree more. Even the creepy little hypocrite pretending to be The Speaker was occasionally applauding between eye rolling and shaking his head, although he tried to hide his applause behind the dais.
He was “fiery”, all right—he yelled. He also rushed and garbled many of his lines. But he was energetic, and steady. Onwards.
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