Biden’s State of the Union 2023 is Tuesday: Will Boebert, Greene behave?
How to watch the State of the Union address Tuesday?
With an economy-sized supply of Dramamine, if last year’s was any indication. It was sickening. Not as politics — your perspective on President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress will vary depending on which side of the aisle you’re on. In terms of speechifying, it was pretty regular — the usual touting of achievements and big plans for the future. After four years of Donald Trump, it was comfortingly boring.
As human behavior, it was anything but. Rightly or wrongly, there is a certain amount of decorum to these sorts of things.
Disagreement is strong among representatives and senators, but for the most part it’s politely expressed. Democrats will give some of Biden’s talking points a standing ovation while Republicans will sit on their hands.
Once in a great while, everyone will stand and cheer. You know, the usual. It’s not typically the bickering display that goes on in the House of Commons or a local school board meeting or anything.
Boebert, Greene put on a clown show for the ages at the 2022 State of the Union
Except for some reason — well, the reason is the occupant of the White House from 2017-2021 — decorum seems to have been not just lost but taken out back and buried in a hole. And that was on display in a major way during Biden’s 2022 address.
Most specifically by Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who put on a clown show for the ages.
They turned their backs when Biden’s Cabinet members walked in. They tried to get a “build the wall” chant going as Biden spoke. (Happily, it fizzled out quickly.)
When Biden spoke, rather movingly, about damage to soldiers from burn pits in Afghanistan, talking about “a cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin — I know,” he was clearly talking about his late son, Beau.
He mentioned him by name, but not before Boebert yelled, “You put them in there, 13 of them!”
How do we know it was Boebert who yelled this? It was a crowded room, after all.
Because she bragged about it in a tweet.
Class act.
It was, if nothing else, interesting television, in the sense that it was something you don’t see often, like an exploding whale or something.
It was also deplorable human behavior and a miserable excuse for governing.
Most people have more sense. Or maybe they don’t. A certain segment of Twitter loves this stuff — a segment best avoided, but an increasingly prominent one now that Elon Musk has welcomed back the rabble-rousers and made the place about as fun as a biker bar with 2-for-1 drinks after midnight. It can get ugly, fast.
If you watched the House of Representatives in action in January as Rep. Kevin McCarthy systematically sold away pieces of his soul to become speaker of the House, you got a pretty good indication of where we’re going with all this — straight into the dumpster.
McCarthy sitting beside Harris and behind Biden will be quite a visual
As House speaker, McCarthy will be seated right behind Biden and beside Vice President Kamala Harris. That visual alone should be worth the price of admission.
This doesn’t mean every public gathering of elected officials needs to be a stodgy affair with tuxes, tails and monocles. Heated debate is healthy and, you know, fun to watch.
Certainly, Tuesday’s State of the Union will be worth watching, just to see how people act — Republicans who now control the House in particular.
I’m nobody’s Miss Manners, but these events shouldn’t be free-for-alls. There’s a simple test: Adults shouldn’t behave at a joint session of Congress in ways that I would punish my kids for.
Yeah. Good luck with that.