CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER ON OBAMA’S QUESTION TIME:
I do think it should be something we ought to consider institutionalizing. As we heard earlier, it is like prime minister’s question time in parliament but, of course, we don’t have a prime minister. We have a president who is half prime minister, half king.
So, instead, he gets, you know, the pomp and the circumstance of a State of the Union address, which is a one-way speech. . . . It’s supposed to be the equivalent of a throne speech in England, except that [here] it’s partisan and hectoring and argumentative.
I think it would be nice if he were to abolish the State of the Union addresses, have it as it was before Woodrow Wilson — have it written and submitted.
Instead have twice a year the meeting of the president with the opposition, not primetime but in the afternoon, like today, on television, but low-key. Have it once with opposition members of the House and once with opposition senators.
Indeed.