CONFESSION: WHY I NEITHER WATCH NOR LISTEN.

 I can't remember how many years it has been since I watched a (let me call it) State of the Union speech. I will read about the latest one tomorrow. My enthusiasm for listening live has long since waned. Tonight I had an insight as to the possible when-and-why of the waning: the response speech. Whether my president is Republican or Democrat I believe he or she has the responsibility to speak to the Congress as president, and Congress has the responsibility to listen as Congress. Yes, I do accept that we have two parties and that Congresspeople and presidents speak and listen as members of parties. They also speak and listen for their constituents--should not every state and every congressional district be asked to respond live-and-immediately as to how the president's speech will impact its share of the land-and-people-scape? The response speech is a ceremony requiring an absolute opposition; an opposition that must be drafted before the president's speech is delivered. Whoever came up with this idea had, in my opinion, a ridiculous idea. It swears with our Constitution. Rather than merely accept the partisan content in the presidential speech, the ceremony begs for partisanship over statesmanship from the president. It also removes my sense of duty to watch and listen. I want to kill the ceremony. One way to do so might be for presidents to return, for a decade or two, to the tradition of reporting in writing to the Congress on the state of our union. Opposition parties, whichever, would be less likely to respond in kind knowing that few people would find a reason to read what they write. Amen.