http://www.steynonline.com/7418/the-stupid-party-gets-stupiderThe Stupid Party Gets Stupider
by Mark Steyn
Steyn on America
January 13, 2016
In A Night At The Opera, Groucho Marx's carriage, running late, pulls up at the opera house, and he asks whether he's missed the opera. There's still a few minutes left, says the doorman.
Groucho barks at his driver: "I told you to slow that nag down.... Once around the park, and drive slowly."
That's my approach to the State of the Union. I took it once around the park and slowly, and arrived home just as President Obama was schmoozing and gladhanding his way out the door.
But, alas, I had forgotten the Official Response to the State of the Union.
This is when the other party picks some allegedly rising star to "respond" to the speech - not by addressing anything the guy actually said, but by droning robotically some bland pap that was loaded into the prompter long before the President began speaking, and usually involving some "compelling personal story", like growing up the daughter of immigrants or the son of a mailman or whatever. I would have a modicum of respect for Jeb Bush if he were to blow whatever loose change is left of his 100 million bucks with one final campaign ad along the lines I suggested a few months back: "I come from a humble upbringing. I was raised the son of a president. We had it tough back then. In those days they only had the 20-car motorcade, not the 40-car one they've got today..."
Unless you do something outrageous, like take a sip of water halfway through, these Official Responses are even more stillborn and instantly forgotten than the main speech. Last night it fell to Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina and daughter of immigrants from India, to deliver the response, and much of what she had to say was the traditional boilerplate delivered with the usual glassy-eyed prompter-face.
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