Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

State of the Union Humbles Presidency

The State of the Union address doesn't glorify the president. It confirms the majesty of Congress.

January 28, 2014 at 10:09 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

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Kevin Williamson gets it all wrong in a screed against State of the Union speech traditions over at National Review. Williamson sees the whole thing as a proto-fascist glorification of the president, something therefore inappropriate to the American republic.

But that's all wrong, and the best response is something that Matt Glassman -- who is such a fan of Congress and opponent of the modern presidency that he calls himself a Whig -- wrote about the rituals of the SOTU a couple of years ago. It's terrific, so I'm going to give you a large chunk of it, but do click through to read the whole thing.