2-10-02, Danny McBride
Estate of the Union
By Danny McBride
IPS Features
My fellow Americans, and even those of you who are not my fellows. I stand before you tonight to tell you that everything is incredibly great. We are winning The War. We have beaten back the Economic Turndown. And I can now chew and swallow pretzels without assistance. We are on our way to the best times we have ever had. In fact, at the end of my speech, every one of you will get a lollipop.
Up in the gallery tonight I would like to introduce to you Swami Yurmommy, who has led the forces of Peace and Justice that we once thought were the bad guys, but are now our friends. Sitting next to him is little Jimmy Muffinbutter, who recently saved a cat stuck in a tree. And also please join with me in welcoming a man who needs no introduction, so I won’t- -the only guy on Capitol Hill who never took a dime from Enron.
The State of The Union addresses of the past few years have become these totally predictable TV events- -events that don’t really happen unless they are on TV. If it were not for the fact that they are on TV, we would never know they had happened. And they are taken so seriously. Give me a rest. It’s all such hokum.
And now for the rebuttal from the opposition: Well, we kind of agree, so there’s nothing much we can say except, God Bless You and God Bless America.
George Washington started this. It’s all his fault. Of course his TV ratings were not as good as George W Bush’s the other night, but who knew? G W - -ah, that would be George Washington, not G W Bush- -had the good sense not to show up for his State of The Union addresses. He sent them in writing and that was that. Read them for yourself if you care, or never mind.
Radio changed all this. Now Americans could hear their President talking to their Congressmen. But it wasn’t long before the broadcast genius Franklin Roosevelt had turned the medium to his own use. Earlier Presidents had tried to use radio, but failed- - Most notably President Chester A Arthur who failed because radio had not yet been invented.
But those who really had first dibs included Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. In fact you probably know that it was Hoover who caused all presidential formal introductions to just be “Ladies and Gentlemen, The President of The United States” without any name being said. That was the result of announcer- -and later Burns and Allen radio and TV star- -Harry Von Zell’s early radio introduction of President Hoobert Heever, ah Heebert Hoober, ah, Heebee Jeebee, ah, Herbery Hoovery, ah nuts! Herbert Hoover. Mr Von Zell’s career continued. Shortly thereafter, Mr Hoover’s did not.
Even though Truman and Eisenhower made plenty of TV appearances, it wasn’t until the telegenic John F Kennedy that TV really started to be important. And despite the fact that Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter all had hours of air time, it wasn’t until Reagan that the TV experience of an event was actually more important than the event itself. Of course, Reagan had been a B movie actor, and as we all now know, C+ is good enough for Presidents- -so B looks pretty good in a C+ world- -never good enough to fool other actors- -he never came close to an Academy Award nomination- -but good enough to fool most people. Remember how Ronnie used to look up in the balcony and smile at “Mommy” during his State of The Union addresses and, in her red dress, the real power behind the throne would nod and smile back. That got it started. We loved the interplay, the knowing looks, the drama, the heart-pounding story that only Jack L Warner could bring to the screen- -wait!- -I’m getting off into movie trailers. Well anyway, that’s how it started.
With Clinton it got ridiculous- -Hey!! What didn’t!! And now we have this full blown TV production that has nothing to do with anything other than making our Chief Executive look as good as he can in front of all the other Poobahs in Washington. But you know what? Pretty soon- -and not soon enough for me- -the public will catch on to this and channel surf over to the “All New Buffy The Vampire Slayer” being counter-programmed on UPN. And maybe, just maybe, we can go back to reading what The President really has to say, if anything, and forget about all the pandering to the lowest common denominator. (Hey, THE DENOMINATOR- -wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger in that one?)
We have an Axis of Evil- -Wasn’t that a Jimi Hendrix album?- -featuring Iran and Iraq- - What’s the differnce?- -An “n” or a “q”!!- -And North Korea. Yup. They’re all right next door to each other. Oh I know, it was to make a comparison to Germany, Italy and Japan, with Saddam as our modern day Hitler- -unspoken, but implied- -Hey!! They even both have moustaches!!
But we need to pay attention to the words, including those omitted--“And I’d like to say a big Texas ‘Howdy’ to my ole buddy Ken Lay and his lovely wife Linda”- -By the way- -did you see her on TV? GAWD!! Get a grip!! The only way to really know what was said is to get a newspaper or go to a website and read the transcript.
You think “Tex” is for Texas? Uh-uh. It’s short for TEXT.
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