Like him or not, the man gives a good speech.
On TV Tuesday night, President Obama’s last State of the Union speech sounded well-written. And
the president delivered it in the usual confident way he has with a speech in which he comes across as relaxed and almost conversational.
He was reading off
of a screen, of course -- probably two of them. But he’s so polished at this that he gave no sign that he was relying on TelePrompTers (if this is what they are still called).
The telecasts I grazed through during the speech -- which started at nearly 10 minutes after 9 p.m. Eastern and lasted about an hour -- all exhibited the usual proficiency.
The image seen most often was the straight-ahead shot of the president at the podium, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden seated over his right shoulder and House Speaker Paul Ryan over his
left.
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In the knowledge that the cameras would be upon them for most of the speech, these two kept their composure and never seemed to doze off even once. The
telecasts were broken up by reaction shots of various members of the audience -- including First Lady Michelle Obama and candidates for president such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (who dropped out of the Republican race last month).
Many of the people shown were not as well-known as these
others, and on many of the networks, they often went unidentified on-screen, which was a shame because it would have been nice to be told who they were.
For
the record, here in New York, the State of the Union could be seen on at least 19 stations and networks -- Time Warner New York 1 News, CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, PBS, MSNBC, CNN and CNN International,
Bloomberg News, NBC Universo (Spanish), Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, Al Jazeera America, BBC World News, Centric (African-American), Galavision (Spanish), and C-Span 1 and C-Span
2.
NBC’s business channel, CNBC, skipped the speech. Instead, it aired an episode of “Shark Tank.” Spanish-language Univision also took a
pass on the president’s speech, opting instead for a telenovela, “Pasión y Poder” (translation: “Passion and Power”).
Traditionally, the best part of the annual State of the Union telecasts for me has always been the run-up to the speech in which the politicos arrive at the Capitol and file smiling into
the House chamber where they then proceed to shake hands, and hug and kiss each other. Then there’s the procession of cabinet members, joint chiefs and Supreme Court justices.
Many people thrill to all this pomp and circumstance. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there thinking: What a bunch of phony pompous asses these people are! I realize
that’s cynical, but it’s really part of the experience, isn’t it?
In years past, I have usually watched this part of the State of the Union
evening on C-Span because they used to show it without audible commentary of any kind -- which made the viewer a kind of fly on the wall just watching everything. This year, there was commentary on
C-Span, and another tradition bit the dust.
As for the actual speech, it is appropriate here in this TV blog to try and assess its value as a TV show. And in
that regard, it should surprise no one that it would be found lacking. As a TV show, this hour-long speech airing in prime time uninterrupted by commercials or breaks of any kind runs counter to every
media trend folks in the media biz talk about constantly.
It’s too long, the visuals are dull and I imagine that a great many of the people watching it
are not buying it. Speaking for myself, despite the president’s sprightly delivery, I only stayed with this speech until the very end out of a sense of professional obligation because I had
committed myself to making it the subject of Wednesday morning’s TV blog. If I had not, you can bet your bottom dollar I would have bailed after about 15 minutes.
What can I say? I’m no different than anybody else. Who can really sit there for an hour or more listening to a politician make a speech? President Obama did a great job. But it was
boring television anyway.