{"id":796,"date":"2007-01-23T22:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-23T22:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html"},"modified":"2007-01-23T22:35:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-23T22:35:00","slug":"hoorah-for-state-of-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html","title":{"rendered":"Hoorah for The State of the Union!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Hoorah for the State of the Union! Three Cheers! It\u2019s the best TV I\u2019ve seen in months, and it almost made it worth the pre-empting of Boston Legal! (I said <i>almost.)<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Cheer #1\u2014Decorum. Our country has rarely been more divided between Red and Blue states, but on SOTU night, we applaud our democracy. There was applause for all of the Supreme Court judges, even though Senators in the room voted against some of them. There was applause for the President\u2019s Cabinet members, even though their policies run directly opposed to the platforms of nearly half of the Congress members. There was applause for Ms. Pelosi, even though her liberalism is out of step even with others in her party, let alone the Republicans. And, there was applause for the President from both sides of the aisle as he entered the room and several times during the speech.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Cheer #2\u2014Inspiration. There were several moments of special inspiration. The first was President Bush\u2019s welcome of the first \u201cMadam Speaker,\u201d which was almost obligatory, but then he made a non-obligatory second mention, which included tributes to her as well as her father, Congressman Thomas D&#8217;Alesandro, Jr. It was heartfelt and warm, and having met the President twice, I recognized this tone in him and knew he \u201cwas himself\u201d on this important night. Also inspiring was the mention of several heroes including Dikembe Motumbo (\u201cWe\u2019re proud to call this Son of the Congo a citizen of the United States,\u201d), Julie Eigner-Clark, who created \u201cBaby Einstein\u201d and is now producing videos to find missing and exploited children, Wesley Autrey, the New York City subway hero, and Tommy Rieman of the U.S. Army who defended his gunner, refused medical attention, and stayed in the fight to earn a Silver Star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Finally, I was inspired by the fact that President Bush kept it to 50 minutes, barely half as long as President Clinton\u2019s last speech.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Cheer #3\u2014Humor! I love these humorous moments:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Nancy Pelosi really working      her lipstick, almost \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d-ish in the background of the      President;<span><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Dick Cheney breaking out in      an amazingly expressive and full, well, half-smile;<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Hillary\u2019s \u201cyeah sure\u201d look on      several occasions; <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Ted Kennedy looking like he      was nodding off;<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">All of Congress standing to      cut the \u201cearmarked\u201d special funds\u2014let\u2019s see who comes through and votes      for it on the floor of Congress;<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Dikembe Motumbo standing so      tall it looked like everyone else was sitting;<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">Congressmen and Senators asking (and even falling over each other) for autographs and kisses on The President\u2019s way in, even his opponents, which included the son of Jesse Jackson and some of the most liberal Congressmen in D.C.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <\/p>\n<p>  <span>Finally, we can all be inspired by the fact that two years from now, we\u2019ll have a new leader that will have risen to power\u2014not with guns or death\u2014but through a wonderful process which is the elective process of The United States of America.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hoorah for the State of the Union! Three Cheers! It\u2019s the best TV I\u2019ve seen in months, and it almost made it worth the pre-empting of Boston Legal! (I said almost.) Cheer #1\u2014Decorum. Our country has rarely been more divided between Red and Blue states, but on SOTU night, we applaud our democracy. There was&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hoorah for The State of the Union!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hoorah for The State of the Union!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hoorah for the State of the Union! Three Cheers! It\u2019s the best TV I\u2019ve seen in months, and it almost made it worth the pre-empting of Boston Legal! (I said almost.) Cheer #1\u2014Decorum. Our country has rarely been more divided between Red and Blue states, but on SOTU night, we applaud our democracy. There was&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-01-23T22:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Douglas Howe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hoorah for The State of the Union!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hoorah for The State of the Union!","og_description":"Hoorah for the State of the Union! Three Cheers! It\u2019s the best TV I\u2019ve seen in months, and it almost made it worth the pre-empting of Boston Legal! (I said almost.) Cheer #1\u2014Decorum. Our country has rarely been more divided between Red and Blue states, but on SOTU night, we applaud our democracy. There was&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2007-01-23T22:35:00+00:00","author":"Douglas Howe","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html","name":"Hoorah for The State of the Union!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-01-23T22:35:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-01-23T22:35:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a05dabea7186e9c2898a41a6713aa98a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/01\/hoorah-for-state-of-union.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hoorah for The State of the Union!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a05dabea7186e9c2898a41a6713aa98a","name":"Douglas Howe","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e3\/7e32c99b36f419c4c074635d65150806x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e3\/7e32c99b36f419c4c074635d65150806x96.jpg","caption":"Douglas Howe"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/dhowe"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}