Change of Plans

I was planning on watching last night’s State of the Union Address. In fact, I had been planning it for weeks. I was going to have a notebook so I could jot down ideas to research afterwards. I was going to have Twitter up and running so I could share in some good old fashion partisan fist pumping with fellow Democrats. I was even going to pop popcorn to munch on while I partook in what can only be described as world-class political theater. Then for reasons I can’t quite explain, I changed my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to watch the address (I am an admitted political junkie); it will just be later today as a recording.

I think that part of the reason I came to that decision is that it was simply an exercise in emotional self-defense. Watching a speaker with the talent of President Obama, it would have been easy to get caught up in the moment and forget that our current congress is an absolute dumpster fire, and any action taken to move the country forward will have to come from executive action, which will then be subject to scrutiny from a Supreme Court that is, at best, ambivalent about the interests of the average American. So to prevent myself from forgetting that the next two years are basically all about playing defense, and preventing the lunatics and vandals that make up the Republican Party from doing more damage than is absolutely inevitable, I’m going to watch it coolly detached, while sitting at my desk, this afternoon.

Of course, the President is sure to have made a number of attractive policy proposals. I just think that I prefer to analyze them on their own merits, uninfluenced by whether selected cable-news viewers liked the pitch well enough to turn the ridiculous ratings dials they’ve been furnished by our even more ridiculous punditocracy. Also, I absolutely didn’t need the image of Chris Matthews bloviating about the President’s ability to connect with “Joe Six-pack” or whatever euphemism for middle-aged white guy that he’s using this year, that close to bedtime.

I’ll almost certainly have a piece up later this week, discussing what I think is the most interesting, or promising, or potentially useful policy initiative. If you wanted breaking news, there are plenty of other places to go for that. I’m going to do my best to continue to discuss issues that I think are relevant, regardless if they took place a whopping two or three news-cycles ago. Besides, the season premiere of the final season of Justified was on last night. So at least my popcorn didn’t go to waste.