Dear Mr. President,
You recently informed Speaker Pelosi that you would accept her gracious invitation of January 3rd to deliver your State of the Union address to Congress next Tuesday. You justified this by explaining that, contrary to her expressed concerns about security, the Dept. of Homeland Security and the Secret Service have both informed you that security will not be an issue.
Despite this, Speaker Pelosi has once again informed you that the invitation will not be honored, and that you will not be allowed to address Congress.
It seems clear that the Congress has a right to rescind its invitation, and that attempting to force the matter would create a Constitutionally problematic situation. Fortunately, there is a simple, even elegant solution to this potentially embarrassing impasse.
While the Constitution does require that you provide it a report of the state of the union, it does not require that you do so in person. The obvious solution, therefore, is for you to provide a written report to the Congress — and then to deliver that same report, as a speech, to the largest, most adoring crowd of supporters you can assemble for such an historic event.
One very desirable consequence of this will be that the Democrats will be hard-pressed to deliver a televised “response” to your speech without inviting substantial ridicule, given that you addressed the Congress in writing, and that they denied you the opportunity to give a formal address.
Win, win.
Chuck says:
Nice job Hank