I had every intent of watching the SOTU last night- I view it a duty of an informed citizen to know what sort of nonsense our rulers are spewing at any given moment. I was willing to even watch the rebuttal afterward, just to see what the inverse of the President’s opinions might be, not having any of my own.
Oh, sorry, almost forgot the disclaimer: I tend to have more contempt for the party that is actually in power at any given time than the other one, since it is more of a direct threat to our liberty. Please don’t take this as anything but mild dyspepsia for the process as it exists today of this astonishing experiment in representative government.
I am not confident about the state of the union, not that I am responsible for it, but I certainly think it seems a little threadbare in places. We are not talking to each other any more. I look through the “comments” section after some of the articles I read about politics, and between the Trolls and the True Believers it seems we are just yelling at one another.
Still, one has an obligation to stay informed. I got back from Willow in time to watch, and was considering which biased news source to have the President’s remarks filtered through. I ticked off the usual suspects, and decided that C-SPAN would be the least irritating.
It was a chill evening after a cold day. Willow had been rocking after a quiet Monday- maybe it was a function of apprehension about the possibility of more snow.
Fish and Wildlife was out in force, desperately partying at a classy place against the inevitability of the Service’s forced move to Seven Corners later in the year in the interest of cost savings. There they will have a Chilis as the nearest watering hole, or maybe the Olive Garden, which is a daunting prospect.
I was enjoying a long-deferred catch-up with former colleagues from the Phone Company. One of them is married to a politician who chairs a major committee on the Hill, and the other was my old Boss who in addition to a demanding day job is in the arduous process of becoming a Deacon of the Catholic Church.
Both amazing people. The Political Wife had to take off to attend the SOTU address in person. I marveled at the idea of physically being in the crowd with all those people.
But I won’t go down that rabbit hole- Old Jim was taking a pass on the bar that night due to the extreme cold conditions, and the possibility that there would be snow on the ground that could land him on his head or worse in the walk down the block.
I mixed an el Guapo vodka tonic upon a safe return with no accumulation of snow on the ground, and turned on Fox News to settle in for the President’s remarks. He entered the chamber- I looked to see if I could see my friend among the aggregation of the greats and ingrates in the crowd.
Speaker Boehner wasn’t as orange colored as he is usually, and he eventually gaveled the chamber into order and introduced the President, who began to read things off the teleprompter. I realized there was absolutely no way I could handle it and turned it off and went to bed. Snow was starting to scud across the patio outside. Enough.
This was the best summary I saw when I dragged my sorry ass out of bed this morning, from Jim Geraghty of the National Review: “In a development that surprised no one, the President’s fans liked it, his critics largely hated it, and millions upon millions of Americans wondered what happened to their favorite shows.”
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303