The “free lunch” for GOP lawmakers is about to end. Up until now they’ve had a kind of unofficial get-out-of-jail-free card, ignorance. Trump tweets something stupid. What about it Senator? “Sorry, I didn’t see that one, I really can’t comment”, or “I don’t respond to every thing he tweets”. Trump holds an unhinged hour plus press conference, roasting the media. Any response Congressman? “Sorry, I was busy”, or “Sorry, I didn’t see it, stuck in a committee meeting”, or “Nope, missed it, had a Brazilian-bikini-wax appointment I just couldn’t break”.
Sorry gang, but not this time, not Tuesday night. You all better hope that those invisibility cloaks in Harry Potter are real, and you can lay your hands on one to get out to your car after the address. Ready or not, here it comes. About an hour of part teleprompter script speech, and part disjointed free range drivel. And no lame excuses this time guys and girls, thanks to your Speaker, you’re a captive audience.
The worst part is that there’s no way to prepare for the media questions afterwards in advance. For most politicians, they have a particular style, and a standard set of talking bullet points. You have a pretty good idea of a lot of the content of their speech, and you can kind of crib craft some of your responses to questions based on past experience. Not with Trump. A Trump speech is like going through a switchboard built by a four year old. You dial Houston, and end up talking to Honolulu. There’s no way to prepare any canned comments, cuz you never know what’s going to come out of his mouth next.
This is going to be the fun part for me. The speech itself figures to be typical Trumpenbaby, he only has one standard speech, his stump speech, although it would be funny if he bored the place silly by lovingly replaying his primary victories again. But the nights high entertainment will be watching a bunch of trapped Senators and Representatives, with deer-in-the-headlights looks in their eyes, desperately trying to toss out a little baby food word salad about Trump’s speech so that they can get out of there without raising his ire and go have a drink or two. Or four.
That’s the only real reason to tune in. The speech itself will be a cure for insomnia, but watching these chickenshit GOPasaurs try to compliment their deranged leaders words while trying to maintain at least a modicum of dignity may get your eyes open again in a hurry.