WHY IT WAS ALWAYS NANCY’S SHOW

By Dominique Paul Noth

Watch Pelosi expose real State of the Union

Now that President Trump’s State of the Union speech has been rescheduled to Feb. 5, let me admit to a quixotic viewpoint. I actually can’t wait.  And while I fully support Nancy Pelosi pulling the plug on the first scheduled until the government was reopened, I was looking forward to that one, too.

Why?  Not because of anything the president has to say.  I won’t be listening, unless he tries to explain his secret meetings with Russia, his actual plans for Venezuela and why he and his intelligence experts have totally different takes on Iran and North Korea.

No, I’m tuning in to watch the Speaker of the House behind him.  Was hoping to see her reactions January 29 but now I am willing to wait.

Pelosi is a civility veteran of public niceties.  She is not about to wince, roll her eyes or laugh out loud, but her behavior is going to give clues to the watching public as well as to her charges in  the House, through subtle distinctions of when to applaud, when to stand or when to sit stolidly.

Even better it’s all taking place behind Trump’s head – and while we know how much he desires to twist around to see what’s going on, it will be interesting to see him maneuver those moments.  Could be downright comical.  We already know that Vice President Mike Pence is either a dutiful automaton rising and sitting as orchestrated or a stone cold sphinx elsewhere.

No, the show is Nancy’s.  Always was, since this is the first time Trump has dealt with a divided government. I suspect the TV cameras will stick to the shots she will also be in.

The audience is flat tired of him, boring when speaking from the Teleprompter and an outrageous liar when extrapolating, so this speech will either be dull or foolish. If there is no deal on the border, he will rail about that. If there is a deal he will rail about something else.  I doubt he will even discuss the trouble he is in with the Mueller probe but that reality will hover over every minute of his speech.  I suspect he will lean on how good the stock market is doing . . . this week.

Pelosi denied Trump the platform he wanted during the government shutdown.  But be fair, Nancy.  It was your platform all along.  If anyone tunes in it will be for the Pelosi State of the Union.

About the author: Noth has been  a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then as an editor for its original Green Sheet, also  for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic. He became the newspaper’s senior feature editor. He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs and Internet and consumer news. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly until the paper stopped publishing in 2013. His investigative pieces and extensive commentaries are now published by several news outlets as well as his DomsDomain dual culture and politics outlets.  He also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee.