The networks’ need to prevent dead air and their compulsion to air the opposite side of the story–otherwise commendable–are a mischievous force in U.S. politics. They seek to present an instant rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union address. The State of the Union has by practice become an annual event in which the chief executive declares his judgment on our national situation and challenges.
It is not, and should not be, an ordinary partisan dispute. Time enough for partisan challenges a day after the nation, or at least its citizens interested enough to listen and ponder, have heard what the president believes the state of the nation to be.
A moratorium on instant rebuttals surely would serve the listening populace well, and it might even work to the advantage of the opposite party, which would not have to be labeled by the best shot of its presumed instant-rebuttal hotshot 10 minutes after a long and carefully planned and written address is completed by the president.
Is it too much to ask the network political mavens to go to bed early one night a year?
