Well, Nancy Pelosi sent the President a letter saying that, what with the government shut down and all, it won’t be possible for him to come over and regale Congress with the State of the Union address he had previously been invited to give:
Sadly, given the security concerns [due to furloughed workers] and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29.
Yes, she’s so very sad.
Obviously, she framed this as a request, but it isn’t. She was, for some reason, being polite, though not surprisingly this has caused a great big foofaraw anyway. But while the State of the Union Address has become a big stupid spectacle in the last few decades, for much of our history we never even bothered with having an actual speech. It was better that way, and we should cancel the thing permanently.
The Constitution says only that the President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient….” U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, cl. 1. That’s it. All it says is that the President has the obligation (and the implied power) to make recommendations “from time to time.” George Washington, in one of his relatively few bad decisions, interpreted this to mean he should actually show up before Congress once a year and tell them about stuff in person, which he first did on January 8, 1790. Here are selections from that first Annual Message (as they were called until the 1940s):
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents itself of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public affairs. The … rising credit and respectability of our country, the general and increasing good will toward the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances auspicious in an eminent degree to our national prosperity. Indeed, the auspices are so favorable that only with a supreme national effort could future generations manage to fuck up this great opportunity our sacrifices have all but guaranteed to them permanently.
* * *
In foreign affairs, the interests of the United States require that our intercourse with other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to fulfill my duty in that respect in the manner which circumstances may render most conducive to the public good. And that, gentlemen, is why I ate my translator’s notes following my meeting with Her Excellency Catherine II, Empress of All the Russias; any suggestion of other motive has been crafted from whole cloth by enemies of the People. I am no puppet. You, sir, are the puppet, if puppet there be.
John Adams continued this tradition, though with slightly less profanity. But when it was Thomas Jefferson’s turn, he decided to deliver his message only in writing, explaining in this cover letter that he felt it would be “inconvenient” for everyone if the President appeared personally. He also said that not making a personal appearance would relieve legislators “from the embarrassment of immediate answers on subjects not yet fully before them,” which probably meant something less insulting than it seems.
But Jefferson really felt that the whole idea of having the Executive appear to address the Legislature in this manner was too monarchical for what was then arguably a republic. He didn’t say that in his cover letter, but as he later wrote in a letter he thought would stay private, he expressed disdain for what he called “the pompous cavalcade to the State house on a meeting of Congress” to deliver a “formal speech from the throne.” Following Jefferson’s example, annual messages were usually sent only in writing until 1913, when Woodrow Wilson decided to show up personally.
And it has been all downhill from there.
Even after Wilson’s terrible mistake, though, the speech was still not an annual event. Presidents would sometimes appear in person, and sometimes deliver a written message. In fact, according to the Congressional Research Service, as of 2006 only 73 of the 217 annual messages had been delivered in person. But this has been steadily increasing, for which CRS correctly blames television.
And anybody who has watched a State of the Union address recently knows, or should know, what a giant farce it has become. Everybody shows up for all the pomp and circumstance—including the Judiciary, which crashes the party now even though the Constitution doesn’t invite it—and the President makes this big procession down the aisle during which members of his party worship him and everybody at least feels obligated to applaud. The President then makes a grand imperial-style speech that provides little if any real information, but is doubled in length by applause, and in the worst of all recent traditions, calls attention to some individual citizen who has been invited supposedly for praise but really so the President can bathe in his or her reflected glory. It’s all more than enough to make Thomas Jefferson hurl.
The last thing we need in this country is more president-worship, no matter who’s president, so the whole tradition should be canceled. But a “State of the Union” address would be especially ridiculous right now. Trump’s not going to embarrass anybody with his superior knowledge on subjects not yet fully before them (or any other subjects), but there’s no reason to give him another opportunity to lie about the border “crisis” like he did the other night, to use just one example. And, to get back to Pelosi’s letter, a president doesn’t have the right to give his state-of-the-union info in any particular way, much less the right to some grand processional. That is just a tradition that re-developed after Jefferson scrapped it, and Donald Trump can hardly complain if somebody wants to dump on a tradition he likes. Since this tradition sucks anyway, now’s as good a time as any to dump on it.
I believe George Washington said something similar about the British Empire, though I may be misremembering that quote too.
No comments:
Post a Comment