SOTU: How to Fix It

Ann Althouse reacts to a New York Times piece this morning in which Francis Wilkinson argues that the State of the Union message ought to be delivered in writing. Our first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, delivered the annual report to the Congress in person. But Thomas Jefferson began a practice which held through the presidency of Woodrow Wilson of sending the annual SOTU message to the House of Representatives in writing, where it was read by a clerk.

Wilkinson is laudatory of the Jefferson practice, writing, "Thomas Jefferson abandoned the spectacle when he became president, preferring to send his constitutionally mandated message to Congress in writing. His republican example succeeded in killing the ritual for more than a hundred years."

He also claims that Wilson shifted to the public delivery of the message because he was "an Anglo-phile and world-class meddler." Wilson was probably both of those things. But I think that more prosaic motives prompted the two presidents to approach the SOTU message in the ways they did.

I wrote about this, whether the SOTU should be delivered in person and how the annual address could be improved, in comments at Althouse:

In spite of his protestations to the contrary, Jefferson's primary reason for not delivering the State of the Union was no doubt that he was a poor public speaker.

Since Jefferson is one of the most loathsome liars and smarmy characters in American political history, it shouldn't surprise that he would, out of habit, veil his personal insecurities behind a "republican" argument. This, from a man who, claiming to be a republican who believed in limited executive power, while president, undertook the most breathtaking illegal land grab ever.

When things didn't go Jefferson's way, it was his characteristic to go into hiding. He did that during the Revolution while serving as governor of Virginia. [And he] became a virtual recluse in the face of criticism during his second presidential term. [Madison had to practically beg him to stop his pouting and get back to work.]

And while serving as Washington's secretary of state, he chose to use a tawdry journalist-for-hire to go after his Cabinet rival, Alexander Hamilton, and to portray the President as a credulous oaf or worse, a would-be-king. Of course, Jefferson never took responsibility for this stuff, eventually going back to Virginia to direct his secret orchestrations against Washington's Administration and to undermine the Constitution for the sake of advancing his own political ambitions through a series of resolutions he drafted for several states, each claiming that if they chose, states could abrogate the power of federal laws within their boundaries.

Jefferson decided not to speak to the Congress to report on the State of the Union [in order] to hide.

Conversely, Woodrow Wilson, a man confident in his oratorical skills, resumed the public delivery of the address. And poorer public speaking presidents have probably rued the change in precedent ever since. But unlike Jefferson, they've taken their medicine.

If there is one thing that I would change about the public delivery of the State of the Union message, it would be this: Lose the Lenny Skutnik Moment. Skutnik was the guy who pulled several people out of the Potomac River after the plane on which they were passengers had crashed. It happened during the Reagan Administration. Reagan's State of the Union message happened several weeks later and the President's handlers made sure that Skutnik was seated in the House gallery. The President then introduced the hero--and he was a hero--to the gathered members of government, to a thunderous ovation.

Ever since then, the Lenny Skutnik Moment, often many Lenny Skutnik Moments, have become the boring conventions of not only State of the Union messages, but State of the State messages by US governors.

Two years ago, I attended Bob Taft's annual [State of the State] message here in Ohio. The Skutnik Moment came when the governor introduced one of the Smucker family from Orrville, Ohio, a major Ohio employer and maker of jellies, to the joint session of the General Assembly. (That day I learned too, that the Smucker people provided each member of the Ohio House and Senate with samples of a new peanut butter and jelly cracker combo.) It's great that the Smucker family have maintained their strong ties to Ohio. But does that warrant a feel-good introduction?

If you catch any of the annual addresses from US governors [on CSPAN], you know that the Skutnik Moment has reached absurd and painful proportions, the chief executives often looking less like governors than latter-day Ed Sullivans introducing various embarrassed luminaries planted in the audience for obligatory ovations from an otherwise unattentive legislature.

One element of leadership is presenting a vision. The State of the Union message can give presidents the opportunity to do that in person. But the power of that opportunity would be enhanced, I think, if the public addresses were shorter...and if we could lose the Lenny Skutnik Moment.

[Final note: Another reason behind Wilson's decision to deliver the SOTU in person is that he venerated Washington, about whom he had written a biography, and loathed Jefferson.]