Democrat Representative Luis Gutierrez had a tantrum on national television last night.
At a high point of the State of the Union address, President Trump remarked that we rule ourselves, that we as people control our destiny. He went on to speak of the young men who have given their lives for that right: on D-Day in Normandy, in the waters of the Pacific, in the air over Asia. All the grandeur of Washington DC, even the Capital Building itself, he reminded us, was a monument, not to the powerful, but to the American people.
It was a spine-tingling moment. The chamber and gallery rose as one to their feet and erupted in chants of “USA!”.
Gutierrez also leapt to his feet, but only to flee the room. He bumbled down the aisle to ineffectual pats by his compatriots.
He later explained that the comments were racist. Why, precisely, honoring the WW II vets of the Greatest Generation is racist was never explained, but we don’t expect logic from Mr. Gutierrez on his best day, let alone when he’s having a psychotic break.
What is more likely is that Mr. Gutierrez was fleeing the silent screams of his caucus, self-immolating in yet another stunt gone awry. His entire party looked less like French Resistance fighters than toddlers in a grocery aisle. On a night made for visuals, theirs was going to become a classic, but for all the wrong reasons.
How about the stony, petulant faces of the Congressional Black Caucus, looking as if Trump were advocating a return to the cotton fields? The subject: the lowest African American unemployment in the history of the nation.
Or that telling moment with the despairing faces of the Hispanic caucus members, similarly enraged by the fact that Hispanic unemployment is also the lowest in US history.
Then we have Nancy Pelosi, looking as if she needs a colonoscopy, stat (much to the unending amusement of Twitter). She was particularly sour when Trump suggested that both sides work together to forge a compromise on immigration, with neither side getting everything it desires but the country getting a reasonable system. Compromise? The vicious cad.
At one point, the president introduced two grieving African American couples who lost their 16 year old daughters to a vicious murder spree by MS13 gang members. Using gallery guests to illustrate political policies is an old chestnut that often leaves one cold, but the genuine grief and loss were so patent that many in the chamber had tears in their eyes. The Democrats? Not so much. And as the chamber again rose to its feet, they sat.
The sat for rising wages. They sat for record employment. They sat for a soaring stock market. They sat for respecting the anthem. They sat for veterans having choices in health care. They sat for terminal patients being allowed to seek experimental treatments.
No visual dreamed up by a Republican partisan could have made it clearer. Despite their rhetoric, what the Democrats in Congress valued last night was not the burgeoning gains for the little guy, but the loss of their own power. Those little guy gains? They sat them out. Or ran away.
And so it went.
It didn’t help that Joe Kennedy, the Democrat giving the opposition response to the State of the Union was, well … drooling. Instead of discussing the substance of his comments, Twitter had a field day over the dribbles. He looks, remarked one, “like a rabid dog”. The other responses went no better. Poor Bernie Sanders had his speech interrupted by a technical debacle that left his screen blank for 3 full minutes. Maxine Waters could only get her speech covered on BET. As visuals go, it couldn't get much worse.
The State of the Union is an evening of some substance, but it seldom raises any issue not thoroughly discussed on a daily basis elsewhere. What it does offer is those visuals: they grab the imagination.
Petulance and tantrums.
The Democrats are going to need a long, long time to get that particular visual out of the national imagination.
At a high point of the State of the Union address, President Trump remarked that we rule ourselves, that we as people control our destiny. He went on to speak of the young men who have given their lives for that right: on D-Day in Normandy, in the waters of the Pacific, in the air over Asia. All the grandeur of Washington DC, even the Capital Building itself, he reminded us, was a monument, not to the powerful, but to the American people.
It was a spine-tingling moment. The chamber and gallery rose as one to their feet and erupted in chants of “USA!”.
Gutierrez also leapt to his feet, but only to flee the room. He bumbled down the aisle to ineffectual pats by his compatriots.
He later explained that the comments were racist. Why, precisely, honoring the WW II vets of the Greatest Generation is racist was never explained, but we don’t expect logic from Mr. Gutierrez on his best day, let alone when he’s having a psychotic break.
What is more likely is that Mr. Gutierrez was fleeing the silent screams of his caucus, self-immolating in yet another stunt gone awry. His entire party looked less like French Resistance fighters than toddlers in a grocery aisle. On a night made for visuals, theirs was going to become a classic, but for all the wrong reasons.
How about the stony, petulant faces of the Congressional Black Caucus, looking as if Trump were advocating a return to the cotton fields? The subject: the lowest African American unemployment in the history of the nation.
Or that telling moment with the despairing faces of the Hispanic caucus members, similarly enraged by the fact that Hispanic unemployment is also the lowest in US history.
Then we have Nancy Pelosi, looking as if she needs a colonoscopy, stat (much to the unending amusement of Twitter). She was particularly sour when Trump suggested that both sides work together to forge a compromise on immigration, with neither side getting everything it desires but the country getting a reasonable system. Compromise? The vicious cad.
At one point, the president introduced two grieving African American couples who lost their 16 year old daughters to a vicious murder spree by MS13 gang members. Using gallery guests to illustrate political policies is an old chestnut that often leaves one cold, but the genuine grief and loss were so patent that many in the chamber had tears in their eyes. The Democrats? Not so much. And as the chamber again rose to its feet, they sat.
The sat for rising wages. They sat for record employment. They sat for a soaring stock market. They sat for respecting the anthem. They sat for veterans having choices in health care. They sat for terminal patients being allowed to seek experimental treatments.
No visual dreamed up by a Republican partisan could have made it clearer. Despite their rhetoric, what the Democrats in Congress valued last night was not the burgeoning gains for the little guy, but the loss of their own power. Those little guy gains? They sat them out. Or ran away.
And so it went.
It didn’t help that Joe Kennedy, the Democrat giving the opposition response to the State of the Union was, well … drooling. Instead of discussing the substance of his comments, Twitter had a field day over the dribbles. He looks, remarked one, “like a rabid dog”. The other responses went no better. Poor Bernie Sanders had his speech interrupted by a technical debacle that left his screen blank for 3 full minutes. Maxine Waters could only get her speech covered on BET. As visuals go, it couldn't get much worse.
The State of the Union is an evening of some substance, but it seldom raises any issue not thoroughly discussed on a daily basis elsewhere. What it does offer is those visuals: they grab the imagination.
Petulance and tantrums.
The Democrats are going to need a long, long time to get that particular visual out of the national imagination.