I support this, if NANCY SMASH gets to sit next to Joe Wilson.
Does she still have her BFH gavel, btw, even though she isn’t Speaker?
by John Cole| 55 Comments
This post is in: NANCY SMASH!, Open Threads
I support this, if NANCY SMASH gets to sit next to Joe Wilson.
Does she still have her BFH gavel, btw, even though she isn’t Speaker?
Comments are closed.
BGinCHI
Nancy is a gavel.
JPL
The southern repubs will probably sit together imo. It’s not necessarily just a dem/repub thing down here. lol
Zifnab
Can we seat Clyburn next to Sessions, just to make things as awkward as possible?
jacy
I support it in hopes that it will degenerate into a brawl, like the parliament fights that break out in other countries.
I personally think the SOTU should be more like a hockey game. But then, I think most things should be more like hockey games, which is why I’m not in charge of anything important.
demkat620
@Zifnab: Awwwkward!
But awesome. Make Steve King sit between Raul Grijalva and Lorretta Sanchez.
guster
If only they’d give each other Secret Santa presents, the horrible curse of different parties believing different things might finally be dispelled.
demkat620
I like this game.
SOTU seating buddies!
SiubhanDuinne
I think this is a fine idea, if we can do the seating chart. I’d like to see Paul Broun seated next to Carolyn McCarthy.
matt
I support a no applause rule.
dr. bloor
If not, I’m sure someone around here will be happy to lend her a rusty garden tool.
gwangung
Why would she need anything more than her dainty grandmotherly hands to grab Wilson by the balls to make him behave?
freelancer
@matt:
Except from the galley. “HELP US, JESUS!”
Poopyman
I too was thinking of Joe Wilson.
And a shiv.
(Too soon?)
Joseph Nobles
Only if Rowan Atkinson gets to assign the seating.
Martin
Seat them according to how much they’ve claimed in earmarks, or how many events they’ve held for their constituents – something useful.
Violet
From the link in the post:
I thought Murkowski was an Independent? She ran as one. Did she change back once she won?
Maybe they should seat everyone alphabetically. Or all members from one state should sit together.
freelancer
@Poopyman:
What you said was just like My Lai.
Anne Laurie
Dan Amira at New York Magazine has the counter-argument:
Which is an excellent point. And if it weren’t for Civility, I would add a rude comment about not trusting the crazier Repubs within shivving distance, but that’s just me.
MattR
The presence of Bernie Sanders is absolutely killing all the jokes I want to make about where to put Independent Joe Lieberman.
kdaug
With all the seriousness this is due, I think it’s a terrible idea.
Let the people see who stand and applaud, and who remains seated. Let us see the standouts on the opposing side who cross party lines. Show us who the stalwart ideologues are, who refuse to applaud mom and apple pie.
I like seeing the crossed arms and sitting on hands when the proposal is broadly popular.
I like even more knowing that other people are seeing it. (Those who aren’t watching “Dancing With The Stars”, of course).
And Another Thing...
Barney Frank sits between James – never been a divorce or teh gay in the family – Inhofe & Tom Coburn.
dmsilev
The whole thing is just an exercise in preening. Congress gets to fight over aisle seats to greet the President as he comes in, political commentators get to act like they’re covering the Oscars (“And now walking down the red carpet is Chief Justice Roberts; he told our Chris Matthews that his robe this year is by Armani”), etc. We should go back to the old form of the state of the union, where the President just sends a letter to Congress to be read into the record by the clerk.
dms
kdaug
@Anne Laurie: Damnit, beat me to it. Copying and pasting is way faster than typing.
Jager
If the state delegations sit together maybe Raul can ask his fellow congressman from Az, Trent Franks, how he got away with driving on expired Oklahoma plates for several years, while he was in the state legislature.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
I just drove past Korn’s tour bus. It’s festooned with Monster Energy Drink logos. Nothing says “transgressive rock” like corporate sponsorship. Clowns.
Sko Hayes
Nancy Pelosi doesn’t need a gavel. One look from her can make flies drop dead in mid air. Joe Wilson’s dick shrank 2 inches (permanently) after he got “The Look”.
She raised 5 kids, after all.
shortstop
@MattR: In addition to making people lazy and dependent, socialism makes them unfunny.
DonkeyKong
Have the whole congress play musical chairs dressed in Union blue and Confederate grey to an auto tuned Dixie and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
C-SPAN could do a Pay-Per-View with that!
Buck
How about seating those who care about the least among us in front, while seating those who care only for the wealthy out in the parking lot?
Not damn likely, huh?
MattR
@kdaug: OTOH, it might give us more insight into what the various Congresscritters actually think when they can’t look to everyone around them for clues. (EDIT: I imagine it will be quite amusing to watch various Republicans try to walk back their clapping)
shortstop
Seriously? The S word still gets caught in the spam filter?
Martin
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Wouldn’t that be Klowns?
de stijl
This clique-busting plan sounds like the second act of Mean Girls. Perhaps high school is not the best anaology for the US Congress.
fucen tarmal
of course if we were a ballsy country, our president would have been allowed to deal with his heckler the way hecklers should be dealt with;
a short pg rated example, from the theater of my mind
joe wilson: you LIE
barak obama: that’s what she said!
(deadpan effect, continues speech as if uninterrupted)
it would poll as culturally relevant to focus groups, and keeps the speech within the parameters of a tv-pg rating, other perhaps better responses, could be more explicit.
Poopyman
@freelancer: Ah, but back then snark hadn’t been invented yet.
fucen tarmal
@de stijl:
yeah, they need a 5th grade template then we will see if they can handle junior high school.
Maude
I’d like to see Congresswoman Giffords there.
Buck
@fucen tarmal:
They really need to make sure someone with an arm of steel sits next to this adolescent. Lashing out like a three-year-old would be most difficult to do, what with an elbow wedged in your mouth.
(edited for crappy spelling)
Ash Can
@Maude: Me too.
(And you just know that all the RW bloviators will be saying the following day that she obviously disagreed with every part of Obama’s agenda, and will cite as proof the fact that she didn’t stand up for any of it.)
Anne Laurie
@Buck: In my happy fantasy world, the person doing the introduction finishes: “And Joe Wilson’s Mama is also here, to make sure he doesn’t embarrass her again by forgetting all his manners.”
General Stuck
Brilliant political move by Mark Udall. If it’s one thing the wingnuts hate it is togetherness, unless it’s a bathroom stall at the local airport. They wouldn’t do it, I suspect, if you held a dildo to their heads. Have Real Americans blend in with commies and dark skins. It wouldn’t take Malkin two shakes to start calling them Oreo Republicans.
Buck
@Anne Laurie: That’s brilliant! :-)
Alex S.
I’d like to see Lindsey Graham next to Mark Kirk.
Maude
@Ash Can:
Oh, you’ve got it right. I didn’t think of that.
ruemara
What if we seat them according to IQ?
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Martin:
yes. that is korrect.
gwangung
@ruemara: Defeats the purpose.
harlana
It’s Bullshit!
Evolved Deep Southerner
I make it a point not to watch SOTU addresses or convention speeches for either party in real-time. For something like the SOTU, I far prefer a written transcript to cut through all the applause bullshit. For something like convention speeches, the wheat-to-chaff ratio is so immensely lopsided that I figure someone here will point out all the stuff that’s worth a damn.
The applause and all that other horseshit … it’s just aggravating as hell to me on both sides of the aisle.
Triassic Sands
Great. a seating plan for Congress. It sounds suspiciously like elementary school. Now, if members of Congress will just act like they’re in elementary school, we should have the best behaved SOTU address in decades.
Mike in NC
How many Congressmen will be packing heat that night? You know, just to pay homage to the Holy 2nd Amendment.
CJ
This is not the first thing I’d change about Congress.
Nellcote
@dmsilev:
Or post a video on WH.gov
but live we get to watch Boner over the Prez’s shoulder during the whole thing.
Nellcote
@fucen tarmal:
second amendment option?
jamie d
something about deck chairs on the titanic comes to mind… can’t quite remember though.