GOP Mulls Not Inviting Obama to Give State of the Union

[angus]

I have mixed feelings.  The Kantian in me disapproves.  The Jeffersonian approves.  

What do we really get out of it?  I think it is mostly a drinking game, and I wonder if it really has any other practical application besides being mostly a drinking game.  I think it's unfortunate if the narrow-minded members of the Republican congress are the ones who end the tradition, but I'm not altogether against ending it.  I guess I would prefer if it were the president himself who ended the tradition. 

"The state of the union is strong..."  (applause)  "It is the citizens of this great nation, the greatest nation there ever was, that makes it strong..."  (applause)  "We will make Washington a better place..." (applause)  Rah!  Rah!  Rah!  Go USA.  We're number one  (applause)  Thank you and God Bless America.  (applause)

I would much prefer that the congress and the president actually work for a living, rather than making soundbites.  I just wish it was Obama who ended it, and that would please the Jeffersonian in me.  But if some unnamed GOP operatives are putting out (for political reasons) in a little-read publication to see if it gets any traction, and if the tradition ends that way, it will have been for the wrong reasons, and that offends the Kantian in me.

[angus]

The SOTU needs an overhaul, but I thought it was Constitutionally mandated that "the President shall report to Congress on the state of the union" or something like that.

No doubt, the Framers thought that an assessment of the state of the union was in order.  Article 2 section 3 states the following:

"He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States."

That does not strike me as the equivalent of what the modern presidents do.  I respectfully submit that a serious originalist president could refuse the whole pomp/circumstance affair altogether.  This, in fact, is what Jefferson did, and his rather under-the-radar tradition was maintained for at least a century.