Tuesday, 19 Nov 2024

Opinion | Postponing the State of the Union

To the Editor:

Re “President Delays His State of Union Amid a Shutdown” (front page, Jan. 24):

Finally, President Trump (or someone around him) has shown some smarts. The decision to postpone the State of the Union speech is a savvy maneuver.

Of course, Mr. Trump intends to use the speech to ballyhoo the tremendous job he is doing and to extol how great everything is in the country. He can hardly say such things while there is so much suffering caused by his shutdown of the government without further exposing himself as cruel, out of touch and tone deaf.

By postponing the speech he avoids having to give a defensive, low-key address, and while appearing conciliatory and rational, he preserves for later the opportunity for his grand and delusional self-promotion.

Gerald Harris
New York

To the Editor:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stooped to the lowest of the lows by denying President Trump the opportunity to give the State of the Union address from the House chamber. Since when do we as Americans stoop to such antics as she has displayed?

Like Mr. Trump or not, he is our elected president. We Americans do not treat the office of president with such callous disregard, regardless of our political philosophies. Ms. Pelosi has only hurt her credibility by not demonstrating leadership and a spirit of bipartisanship and basic respect.

She may believe that Mr. Trump is a disgrace to his office, but she is certainly the same to hers.

Laura La Flair
Hickory, N.C.

To the Editor:

Finally, the Democrats are waking up thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The best way to deal with a bully is to bully right back. Force to force. I learned this on the playground, in business and in politics.

Frederick Douglass put it best: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Philip B. Taft Jr.
Hopewell, N.J.

To the Editor:

I’m actually disappointed that Nancy Pelosi won’t allow President Trump to deliver his speech in the House chamber, where one could see which Republicans rushed to embrace him and which (I hope all) Democrats sat on their hands during applause lines.

But I have a great idea for an alternative venue that would give Mr. Trump the audience he so deeply desires: Why not make it the halftime show at the Super Bowl?

Sheila K. Johnson
Cardiff, Calif.

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