Where's the nerds table?

Wondering who I should sit next to at the State of the Union Address...


Wait a second. Didn't you have your rare moment of political punditry yesterday? This looks like a disturbing trend in Blag content.


I know, I know...I did politics yesterday, but today's topic was too important to not include in a Sametime Status. Also, since it's time-sensitive, I couldn't hold off on running it.

So, for those who are not aware, tonight is the President's annual State of the Union Address. (I saved you all the effort, HERE ARE THE RULES TO THIS YEAR'S SOTU DRINKING GAME.) The SOTU address really never changes. The President says approximately 6 words before being interrupted by ravenous applause from half of the assembled congregation. The remaining half of the audience sits there with scowls on their faces, because the way politics works nowadays is that you're either with our political party, or your a horrible person intent on world domination which will ultimately lead to the destruction of everything we hold dear. Why this happens is beyond me, since neither party has even remotely managed to get it right just yet, but that's beside my point. The simple fact that our elected leaders can be so petty about being so polarized is really quite remarkable...and not in a good way.

So, in an attempt to deceive the public about the childish nature of Congress, the elected members of congress have decided to not sit by political party this year (Republicans on the right, Democrats on the left, and Independents standing in the corner, facing the wall wearing paper cone hats), but to Bring A Date From The Opposite Party to sit with. I really wish I was making this up.

As much as turning this into a news story is the lamest bit of political journalism since the breaking story that was the type of beer served at the Infamous Beer Summit of 2009, it really is somewhat newsworthy, if only for sheer irony. These are the same people who haven't managed to work together on anything since the mesozoic era, relying exclusively on majority rule to pass policy, and now we're supposed to believe that by sitting mixed together, they're going to agree on whether or not something in the President's speech was good? I call bunk! Mere minutes after the President is done speaking, there will be the Response speech by a member of the other party, which will say that everything the President just said was a lie, that the opposition's party is the way to go, and that Billy was smoking behind the dumpster during recess.

Mere days after the speech, all of this facade of bipartisanship will once again vanish with nary a trace. In the case of 2010, the Republicans in the House will vote to on a bill to repeal the health care bill (which, by the way, has precisely zero percent chance of passing into law...so what is this besides a symbolic waste of their time and my money?) simply because it was initially passed by the other party, and thus business will return to usual. So what is it about sitting next to somebody that is supposed to make be truly believe that for once, the elected leaders have my best interests in mind, rather than their own? It's absolutely nothing more than a symbolic attempt at distraction from the fact that they have no prayer of working together to make life better for us all. The fact that they can't work together is pathetic and embarrassing, but that they think they can hide that fact from everyone though a special one-time only seating arrangement is patronizing and insulting.