INDEPTH: STATE OF THE UNION
State of the Union
Gary Katz & Martin O'Malley, CBC News Online | Updated January 20, 2004
President George W. Bush's third state of the union message comes as the United States enters another presidential election year, with Saddam Hussein locked up, U.S. troops still fighting terrorism in Iraq, and a $500-billion budget deficit.
The annual presidential message goes back to the first president, George Washington, who delivered it in the Senate Chamber in January 1790, more than six months after he was inaugurated. His remains the shortest state of the union message ever, at 833 words a mere sound-bite by today's standards. The longest-ever was President Harry Truman's 1946 message, which came in at some 25,000 words, about the length of a short novel.
The state of the union message - delivered in the second, third or fourth week of January - is a constitutional requirement, from Article II, Section III, Clause I of the United States Constitution, that says the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."
The state of the union message allows the president to tell Congress what's on his mind and what he sees ahead. The chief executive tells the lawmakers - the House of Representatives and the Senate in joint session - the issues he thinks need their attention. Many presidents have taken the opportunity to launch major initiatives. In presidential election years, the address can be a crucial component of the campaign.
Washington managed to punch all the big buttons in his message, and you're likely to recognize some contemporary resonance of them in Bush's message:
...the blessings which a gracious Providence has placed within our reach, will in the course of the present important session, call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness and wisdom.
...providing for the common defence will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace…
With luck, George Dubya will also take from George W.: ...you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of Science and Literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of publick happiness.
The tradition of the presidential address to Congress was kept alive by the second president, John ("I'm not Quincy") Adams. The third president, Thomas Jefferson, thought the exercise too much like a speech from the throne, and he didn't mean that in a nice way. He downgraded it to a letter the president sent over to Congress.
And so it remained for more than a century until the personal delivery was revived in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson. From there, the state of the union message rose to an event of public importance in parallel with the rise of electronic media. It is a testimony to its current status among media events that when the verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil trial came out during Bill Clinton's 1997 address, the TV networks let Clinton keep part of the screen.
The state of the union message, whether delivered or sent, has contained much that is memorable over its two centuries: Monroe spelled out his doctrine (Old World must not meddle in New World) and Jimmy Carter spelled out his (The U.S. will not look kindly on anyone messing around in the Persian Gulf). Lincoln, during the American Civil War, said in his: "We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of Earth." Franklin Roosevelt named the four essential freedoms (of speech and worship, from want and fear) and promoted the New Deal. Lyndon Johnson launched the Great Society and declared War on Poverty.
Bush the Younger is expected to defend his decision to invade Iraq, deal again with the issue of weapons of mass destruction, declare again that America is a safer place now that Saddam has been captured, and that the more than 500 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq died in a noble cause. But much of the focus of his talk is expected to be on domestic issues, such as employment, tax cuts and health-care costs.
The 2004 state of the union address is expected to last an hour.
It's arguable that the state of the union address is less important than it was a half-century ago, now that the media are everywhere, all the time, and now that the president is quoted endlessly and is about as visible as your local TV weatherguy. But its history gives the speech a weightiness that makes rhetoric and high idealism more palatable, even in cynical times.
So here's another idea for George the Younger to consider as he steps to the podium and speaks to America and the world. It's from Washington's first state of the union message:
...teaching the people themselves to know, and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority….
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