President Barack Obama has promised to make an unconventional State of the Union speech tonight, and it is a safe bet to assume that by “unconventional State of the Union” he means “conventional campaign speech,” heavy with his trademark alloy of intellectual shallowness and risibly inflated self-regard. In 2008 it was “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” but we just can’t wait for them to leave.

Here’s a better idea for an unconventional State of the Union address: Don’t have one.

President Barack Obama has promised to make an unconventional State of the Union speech tonight, and it is a safe bet to assume that by “unconventional State of the Union” he means “conventional campaign speech,” heavy with his trademark alloy of intellectual shallowness and risibly inflated self-regard. In 2008 it was “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” but we just can’t wait for them to leave. Here’s a better idea for an unconventional State of the Union address: Don’t have one.

George Washington, who had excellent republican manners but retained a certain sense of ceremony, fulfilled his constitutional duty to give Congress an annual update by making a speech before the two houses. Thomas Jefferson, who was a bit more French in his republicanism, simply sent Congress a written report, and that was how it was done until the rise of Woodrow Wilson, the puffed-up miscreant who attempted to establish a kind of Bismarckian autocracy in these United States with the royalist pomp and ceremony to match. It has been downhill since then, with presidents ranging from Ronald Reagan — no stranger to showmanship — to the current milk-livered clotpole leading the event’s devolution from bad theater to third-rate circus.

READ MORE

Source: Kevin D. Williamson, www.nationalreview.com