State of the State of the Union

I don't really "get" the State of the Union. I know that my negative feelings towards our current president and his gang of hooligans may accentuate my distaste for the SotU address, but I believe my objection is much more general. The fact of the matter is, other nations don't feel the need to put on the Show that is the SotU and in fact revel in the opportunity to vigorously voice their disapproval of things they find dishonest, broken, or just plain off base. Take the following clip as Exhibit A:



Ah, Taiwan. Okay, I mean something a bit more reasonable than that, so here's a bit more to my liking:



That's more like it. Someone says something patently absurd, and the opposition gets to shout the prime minister down. Someone tells a bold-faced lie and the power of the collective voice of reason rains down. Instead, we put our president up in front of a group of the most privileged and distinguished citizens in public service and let him or her say anything they like no matter how false, destructive, insane, or offensive. In fact, despite the often high level of dishonest, self-serving propaganda spewed the worst a member of the audience can do is sit on their hands while the loyalist weasels shout "huzzah" and give 2 minute standing ovations. In my humble opinion, we should look to our British allies and get down to business. If we are the most direct, straight-talking, and in your face culture in the world, let's act like it when it counts most.

What happened tonight was disgusting and hurtful to our nation. Boooooo......

UPDATE: NPR's blog did a live fact-check on the State of the Union that you can access here. Make sure you are looking at the January 28th entries as I'm sure the blog is regularly updated.