Saturday, January 24, 2015

Still Life With Robin: SOTU / SODC

Public Doman Photo by Pete Souza (Exec. Office of the President)
by Peggy Robin

In today’s 24-hour-news cycle I know I’m well past the limit to get in a timely comment on President Obama’s State of the Union speech, delivered over 86 hours ago….but surely there’s more leeway for response to the next-day commentary.  I’m referring to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show recap of the speech on the following evening. Stewart picked up on something that wasn’t actually in the speech – the fact that it was taking place in a city devoted to representative government, but which itself has NO VOTING REPRESENTATION in Congress. His reference to this little irony was so quickly tossed off, it was easy to miss, but if you roll the Daily Show tape and pause at the 3:03-minute point, then wait for it….here it comes: (http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/jiomoz/big-speech-6):

Obama: I still believe that we are one people…..

Stewart [talking at the image of Obama delivering his speech]: Why would you still think that? It’s amazing. You live in Washington, DC! How do you still have that hope? You live in the city America invented for the sole purpose of sending its most petty, most partisan, most argumentative a--holes, a place evidently so terrible its House of Representatives, whose sole purpose is to have representation, will not allow it to be represented.

Bingo! Just wish someone on Jon Stewart’s staff could be hired as Obama’s speechwriter. Maybe then a nod to DC voting rights could have been injected into the speech itself, rather than in the reaction to the speech. But we in DC must be grateful for whatever little recognition we get.  Thank you, Jon!

----------------------


Still Life With Robin is posted on the Cleveland ParkListserv and All Life Is Local on Saturdays.

No comments:

Post a Comment