I’ve never been one to “follow” politics; I generally find the speeches too dull, and the pundits too abrasive, to tolerate. However, I decided to watch this year’s State of the Union Address for reasons both historical (Obama’s first, the recession, etc.) and personal (as I’m soon to be ingloriously booted from my parents’ health insurance plan, I need to know what’s going on with health care reform). And although the president’s speech did not give me any solid information about what to expect over the coming year, I’m not sorry I watched: it was entertaining as hell!
First off, many of the spectacle’s participants vacillated (without warning, hilariously) between being staid symbols of our government and actual human beings. I’m thinking here of Nancy Pelosi’s inability to stifle her smirk after one politician’s attempt to start a fresh round of applause failed obviously; of the apparently dignified Republicans whose occasional grumbling at one of Obama’s remarks sounded uncannily like the “Rabble, Rabble!” of an angry South Park crowd; and of the President himself, who transitioned smoothly between being Leader of the Free World, doting husband (thanking his “honey” for working to end childhood obesity), disciplinarian father (“I’m speaking of both parties now” sounding more like a stern warning to start sharing the Lego Pirates than an address to U.S. senators), and a tough but inspirational football coach who “[does] not accept second place” for his team (i.e., America).
And then there were the Supreme Court Justices, who – in contrast to Pelosi and Obama – never appeared for a moment to be human. They refrained from laughing, applauding, or even displaying more than one facial expression throughout the address. I assume that the judges deliberately flattened their affects in an attempt to preserve the appearance of total impartiality; perhaps the government fears that the American people would lose their faith in the justice system if our Constitution’s upholders were discovered to have opinions of their own. (At least, I hope this is what was going on; the only other explanation I can think of is that the Justices actually are the cold, ancient, and weirdly garbed oracles they resemble, and I don’t like it one bit.)
As for the content of the President’s speech (which was ostensibly why I wanted to watch the address in the first place), I found it to be entertaining precisely because it lacked content. Whether Obama was discussing job creation or the “deficit of trust,” he never deviated from his handy-dandy presidential formula for addressing national issues: 1. Admit that the situation is bad; 2. Make sure everyone knows that the situation was bad before you got into office (and preferably, that Bush caused the problem in the first place); 3. Tell everyone that the situation is much better because of the actions you took (or will be much better soon, because of the actions you are about to take); 4. Announce that you are setting up an initiative/commission to solve the problem for “future generations;” and 5. Receive hearty applause. Unfortunately, this rigid format gets in the way of saying anything useful about the real state – and future – of our union. Because even when the President says of his bipartisan fiscal committee, “This can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline,” we all know that a list of solutions never guarantees that a problem will be solved.
So am I going to start “following” politics? Probably not – at least not for information about national issues. I might, however, turn on C-SPAN for kicks every once in a while – maybe during the commercial breaks in Millionaire Matchmaker. – Melissa Rosenberg