88 Minutes

I watched The State of the Union address last night, usually I just blow it off and do the Cliffs Notes version the next day and read about it online. From the beginning of an 88-minute speech, it was painfully clear the presidential election is already underway. Right in front of the camera, there was the idiot, MTG, all decked out in a red MAGA ballcap and jacket looking like a waitress at Chicken Delight and pimping for Donald Trump. It’s not even mid-March and the TV ads and text messages are going to be coming at us, hot and heavy. By summer, we’ll all have carpal tunnel syndrome from blocking the texts messages and muting the TV volume. I’ll admit I was a little surprised by President Biden’s performance, I thought this had the possibility of being a major train wreck, but it wasn’t. The President, obviously enjoying the moment, came to the podium in a feisty mood and stayed with it all night, going straight after Trump. He had a few verbal double-clutches, but they were late in the speech when he was obviously getting tired. All in all, his handlers had him relaxed and well prepared. No surprise he came out of the gate and went straight after the abortion issue, it’s the republican’s “third rail” and one of his strongest issues to run on. He did a good job on Ukraine and Gaza, addressed the importance of NATO and our allies. He did a pretty good job weaseling out of the border issue, blaming Trump and MAGA Republicans for torpedoing the recent border bill, but not explaining why it took him three years to notice there were three or four million undocumented people roaming around the country. He probably should have stopped at this point and said good night. Instead, he launched into a litany of social programs that would solve everything, heal the sick, raise the dead, a chicken in every pot, a Ford in every driveway, something for everybody. The cost of even 10% of what he proposed would involve the kind of tax increases nobody’s going to buy into. Like Frank Sinatra famously said,“…everybody needs to know when it’s time to leave the party…”