Last night, President George Bush fulfilled one of his Constitutional duties by delivering the State of the Union Address. While the constitution states only that the president must, “from time to time” address the congress, the SUA has become an annual event in Washington DC – the night the polititions come out to shine. But there's another well loved Washington tradition, which has become an integral part of the State of the Union Address: the battle of applause.

Every president knows what it takes to get a little love from the joint session – a few empty platitudes are often all it takes to provoke a “standing O” from whatever congress-people who still capable of rising to their feet. A presidential speech-writer must be careful not to overuse his verbal applause signs, otherwise the address could wind up lasting several hours (potentially threatening the lives of the legislature's more senior memebers).

However, in this more sophisticated age, the speech-writer must also be careful not to give the opposition any fodder for “counter applause”; that is, he must not allow the president to say anything which might allow the opposing party a chance to take a whack at him during the speech. Counter applause also has the nasty tendancy to be completely unexpected, which might throw the prez off his rhetorical stride (a real problem for Bush, given his last two rather shaky deliveries of this particular address).

The Democrats managed, in their approximately 10 seconds of applause, to more strongly criticize the Partriot Act than they have since they passed it, nearly three years ago. For, just as Bush completed the sentence, “Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year,” Democratic partisans burst into applause, throwing the president off. It was a good joke, a remarkable bit of groupthink which they surely must have been pleased about. In what's widely considered an important campaign speech for the president, due to the fact that he can say his piece without fear of contradiction, the Democrats managed to get one measly, petty dig into his ribs.

Naturally, one couldn't expect this fun little moment to take place without some sort of reaction from the other side of the aisle. Thus, the Democratic counter applause was met with a fierce burst of Republican retalitory hand-clapping. Considering the fact that the text of a president's State of the Union Address is the most poorly kept secret in Washington (outside of the DNC headquarters, anyway), it's a little odd that the conservatives chose to respond after the very next sentence, which was, “The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule.” Now, this is surely something that most people would not applaud. As it was surely written, this statement was intended to shock and terrify its audience – not make them burst out clapping. But this is just what happened. In fact, the Republicans, in the desire to show their enemies just how a real American claps, actually made their applause for this horrendous declaration last nearly three times as long as the Democrats attempt at mid-speech editorializing.

If you were one of the people who watched the address on television (or one of the many more Americans who didn't hear the speech at all), then you missed out on NPR's Robert Seagull's running commentary, which chimed in during almost every break for applause. He called the play-by-play with the skill of a seasoned ovation watcher – letting us know just who was clapping and whether or not they rose to their feet for the occasion – basically telling us that he's done this many times before. And why not? It's clear from the above attack/counter-attack (which inspired what is probably the most poorly placed applause in the history of American politics) that the most important part of a congress-person's body is, for one special night of the year, not his mouth – but his chubby white hands.

In a week, of course, all this will be forgotten in the Battle of New Hampshire, where we can expect to see Dean referred to as “angry”, Kerry referred to as “lucky”, and Edwards referred to as “Mr. Number Two”. It's anyone's guess as to what the president will do to remind the public that he's still here.

-B. C. Silvia
-1/21/2004