Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Trump's Speech to Congress

President Donald Trump came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress earlier tonight. In contrast to his stump stream-of-consciousness style, this speech was read from the Teleprompter and contained only a couple of very small, not objectionable, deviations from script. The talking heads and pundits I heard after the speech gave it high marks, and I agree.

Every president has an informal side and a formal side. Tonight Trump showed his formal side; it gave the lie to claims he cannot be presidential. He can be, he was tonight.

Anybody who thinks he has changed should forget it. He recognized tonight as a serious occasion and delivered a serious performance. Tomorrow he will be back to being Donald the Tweeter, or Donald the Press-basher, that's him too.

There were no major surprises in the speech, but many things to like. I particularly liked the idea we will only send troops to places where we intend to win. That notion seemingly was foreign to the last three administrations. His defense of law enforcement was excellent, too.

Other than not applauding much, Congressional Democrats behaved themselves. They are certainly entitled to withhold applause. There were no outbursts, no acting out. Perhaps they had seen the Rasmussen poll findings cited below.

BTW, I could quickly become accustomed to having a supermodel as FLOTUS ... very classy and elegant.