Not Even Good Vapid Crap

Bob McDonnell's response to Obama's State of the Union was just pathetic. I just made myself watch it. I think the Bobby Jindal staging was probably better, because while that was pathetic, at least it admitted as much. This looked like it was pathetic, but didn't know it. The whole thing just looked like a cheap imitation, rather than a response which is, after all, a different thing. I found the applause-line thing particularly hollow as well, and I think I know why: at the State of the Union, you have the full Congress assembled, along with the Court, and that group is never likely to tilt more than 60-40 in either direction. There's intrigue in the applause: will the opposition party stand? How about for the popular, consensus programs? If so, that's significant: it means the President has the opposition at least convinced it would look really really bad to appear virulently opposed. If not, that's also significant: it means the opposition is virulently opposed. This room was full of a presumably hand-picked crowd. Hell, for all I know they were paying the black woman behind him to sit there and smile. They probably weren't, but there was no one in that room who wasn't there on condition of supporting him. In fact that was the only criterion for being there, whereas the guest list for the SotU is automatically derived from governmental status.

O! BA! MA!

I must say, I really, really liked the State of the Union speech. Sure, I don't agree with 100% of his policies; the spending freeze still sounds somewhat unnecessary, though they might be able to leverage it politically (I'm inclined to doubt this), and of course if I were President we'd be in many fewer wars right now. But none of that was new to this speech. My favorite line, in a sense the "thesis statement" of the whole thing, was, "I don't quit." That man giving that speech was not the kind of person who is going to settle for a world in which he can't really get anything done except for meaningless half-measured that are more in line with the opposition's worldview than his own. That was the main thing I wanted to see, and I saw it.

The State of the Union is...?

...stronger, I'd say, than most people give it credit for. The State of the President? A somewhat more complex question. All in all, though, I am excited for this speech, I think one way or another it will be a turning-point, and as an amateur political scientist at least that can't help but be fascinating.