Perhaps you will find that more entertaining. If nothing else, watching Calista try in vain not to react and risk cracking her botoxed face should add some excitement.

The imagery... the imagery! You owe me a keyboard!

What used to be fun to make fun of is now just getting tiresome.

It was funny the first few times, but now it's just a re-hash of the same old scripts.

or watch "Murder She Wrote" reruns instead.

A constitutionl provision meant to emphasize that the President is not above Congress has become a pageant of executive power held in the halls of congress.

I use it mostly for sports and occasionally a dog show or two.

It's riveting, and is something everybody should watch each year. If you're tired of it, maybe you're just tired.

You couldn't seriously be insisting that it is "riveting," could you?

...to expect people to spend 90 minutes a year listening to the President of the United States talk? Sheesh. Okay, I can understand not watching a Republican do it, I studiously avoided almost all of Bush's SOTUs for fear of barfing, but it still deserved to be on TV.

The applause game is totally ridiculous.
I think one of the most interesting messages Obama could send to the nation next year, would be to submit the SOTU to congress in writing. Other presidents have done that.

I pretty much stopped watching them in the last few Bush years.

The SOTU has become mostly an inside-the-beltway type television political extravaganza.

All the ovations and sitting on the hands and who shakes hands with who and who is sitting next to whom and who is in the gallery and who is sitting next to the First Lady and on and on.

Then there's the endless (it seems) analysis and commentary by the corporate media pundits ... you don't get that much after-the-event talk after the Super Bowl.

And, frankly the speeches are almost always well delivered (even Shrub did an okay job), but fairly pedestrian in content.

Of course, Reagan is mostly responsible for starting this trend. As I recall, he was the first to call attention to some notable individual who was sitting next to Nancy.

So, yup, I agree ... it would be a nice and perhaps substantive change if Pres. Obama would try something different and deliver a real report on the State of the Union to Congress "from time to time."

but all of the people at the same time in this day and age. Why should they be privy to what we all should know?

Article II; Section 3

It is delivered to Congress, but is public whether written or given as an address.

Pres. Wilson was the first to give a SOTU address before a joint session of Congress.

There isn't any transparency issue.

utilized the "bully pulpit," like FDR did when he gave "fireside chats."

However, the president gives weekly addresses, often travels across country to chat with ordinary citizens, employers, and workers (at manufacturing plants, for instance). But because detractors don't watch C-SPAN or the Corporate Media refuses to air these discussions and events, they surely didn't take place now did they?

He also, from time to time, gives a state of the union address.

Were he to cease all of this activity, you and I both know that people would be bitching about "non-messaging," and screaming that the president isn't addressing the American people properly. The very same folks on this board who complain about bully pulpit issues would have something else to complain about.

These are the same people who then turn around and forget that there's two other branches of government--equally powerful--that have an important role in the governing process. These folks seem to think that the president simply waves a magic wand or hover over people--like LBJ did--threatening them to do his bidding. Can you imagine how that would go down in the media: some black dude threatening members of Congress? Not well, I would imagine (note to Jan Brewer apologists).

The guy can't win. I don't know why he even tries sometimes.

It made sense when the President would use it to bring up and discuss important issues and treaties.

With today's media, it simply is not necessary. And because of today's media, it has become a campaign speech for whatever party holds the office.

...???

...wives disapprove of being called that, that's all.

I didn't call you that!

...

that he hasn't "made a pretty speech," or sufficiently utilized the "bully pulpit."

*sighing*

other than he can end the SOTU the way we know it the fastest because he is in office.

When I believe a thing is tiresome, petulant, and self-aggrandizing, I turn it off or walk away. Were you then denied that opportunity...?



On second thought, never mind-- I think I'll either turn this thread off or simply walk away...

Total waste of time!!!

Like this one was.