The President's Speech

I have no idea what the President is going to say - one week from today - about how he proposes to solve (or, more likely, how he thinks the Congress should solve) our country's pressing problems. So far, the preponderance of media attention seems to be focused on the rescheduling of the speech to September 8 after the Speaker of the House rejected the White House's first proposed date of September 7. The media is having a field day doing its usual Who's Up?/Who's Down? routine - the media's default position for covering our politics, its substitute for convering actual issues that matter to people's lives and our country's future.

Given that there is no known President for a House Speaker publicly rejecting a publicly announced date for a Presidential Throne Speech, it is evident that the Speaker has won this round. While there is ample historic precedent for the President to want to come the very day Congress reconvenes, the White House's apparent attempt to compete with the Republican candidates' debate was too transparently silly to merit any serious sympathy. What are they thinking in the White House anyway? Other than predictable right-wing ideologues, who really care about this debate? Other than professional political pundits, how many people care or even knew it was scheduled? Why elevate that trivial event's significance with such a lame attempt ro compete with it?

The fact that this latest mess-up is what we are now talking about again highlights, however, what an unserious country we have become - and the utter unlikelihood of any concerted effort really to resolve our multiple national crises.

So now the President can compete with Football for an audience - a perfect metaphor for the distracted nation we have chosen to become.

As I said, I have no idea what the President plans to say. If he were to ask my advice, I'd challenge him to channel his inner Harry Truman and "give 'em hell." Unfortunately, it's hard to picture this particular President as Harry Truman. But a Harry Truman is precisely what this country needs right now. In particular, a Harry Truman is what this particular campaign will need - someone who will tell it like it is to the American people and expose the Opposition for what it is.