Washington diary: Desperate for viewers

By Matt Frei BBC News, Washington

1 February

No president wants his speech to clash with Desperate Housewives

The American Constitution holds that the president should "from time to time" inform Congress about the state of the union.

The document does not specify a date. It is tradition which has dictated that the nation's chief executive should deliver his address on the last Tuesday of the first month. Unless it is inauguration time. Then the date might slip into February.

The important point here is that it's a Tuesday and not a Sunday. Because at prime-time on the holy Sabbath the most powerful man on the planet would come against Desperate Housewives, Soprano reruns and the West Wing.

At such a time the networks would be very reluctant to grant him the one hour of prime-time (36 minutes of speech plus 24 minutes of standing ovations) that a president can still expect, without having to declare war on anyone or resign or say he's sorry.

Granted, President Bartlett has been faring as badly in the ratings as Dubya is performing in the opinion polls, but even at the worst of times most Americans would probably prefer to watch the fictional White House than the real one.

Lowered expectations

So, the State of the Union address (Sotu in White House parlance) is one of the few occasions when the commander in chief can command the attentions of the viewing electorate. But even here the numbers are shrinking.

Mr Bush aims to convince Americans he is no lame duck

In 2002, 43 million Americans watched Potus (President of the US) deliver Sotu. Last year that number had dwindled to 38 million, and that was after a thumping triumph at the polls.

This year's address is likely to have done even worse since the White House was busy lowering expectations ahead of the speech.

Buoyed by victory and emboldened by the determination not to quack like a (lame) duck - for at least two years - George Bush reached for the stars in 2005, metaphorically and literally.

He wanted to reform social security and failed, despite a 60-day campaign that saw him shuttling from one retirement community to the next. At one stage he even enlisted the help of the nation's fiercest granny, his own mother.

Tax reform was put on hold. Attempts to block gay marriage were themselves blocked.

Immigration reform has been embroiled in a row over a proposal build a wall along the border with Mexico. And, who today can remember the initiative to get kids out of gangs, spearheaded by the lovely Laura? Plans to get back to the Moon, let alone Mars, have been stuck in a very low orbit.

And thanks to that dastardly hurricane with the fetching name, there's no cash anyway.

Television presidency

So this year's address was bound to be far more Earthbound. President Clinton faced a similar dilemma in 1996, when many of his grandiose plans bit the dust.

The party conventions have already been relegated to a walk-on part between American Idol and the latest reality show

That State of the Union address is remembered for a ground-breaking, heart-stopping announcement to introduce uniforms into all public schools.

School children do indeed now wear uniforms - but for boys they tend to be oversized jeans obeying the call of gravity.

The modern Sotu was of course designed for the television presidency. Between 1801 and 1912 it was only ever a letter written by the president to the members of Congress, at best published in the morning's newspapers.

It was Woodrow Wilson who realised its campaigning potential and started to deliver the speech in person.

President Woodrow Wilson turned the Sotu into a speech

In 1965 Lyndon Johnson moved it to prime time, and Ronald Reagan - who else?! - introduced some of the stage directions and props that are now part of the ritual.

These include: the Rocky-style entrance, the ecstatic shaking of bipartisan hands, captured by a moving steady-cam, the heroes and heroines, displayed like live mannequins in the audience, illustrating salient points in flesh and blood.

The irony is that like so many other pillars of the television presidency this one has also been undermined by an electorate suffering from attention deficit disorder.

The party conventions have already been relegated to a walk-on part between American Idol and the latest reality show.

Since they are so scripted and predictable they have helped to dig their own grave. No wonder the White House was careful not to reveal too many gems from the president's speech beforehand. Although the nation was hardly waiting at the edge of their sofas, some surprise is a good thing.

'Basket case'

And yet the only line that anyone can remember from a recent Sotu is the 2002 one about that "axis of evil" - Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

The president of Venezuela has his own TV show every Sunday

Since Iran is now led by a man who denies the Holocaust, hails the destruction of Israel as a rallying cry and uses uranium enrichment as a ploy to enrich his domestic support, that line has, I guess become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In 2002, Iran still had a strong impulse for secular, democratic reform. But since it was already declared a basket case by Potus, the extremists have been doing their level best to prove him right.

It seems unlikely but next year George Bush can always do what Jimmy Carter did in 1981.

The former peanut farmer was so cheesed off with the political process that he sent Congress a 76-page letter about the state of the nation that failed to re-elect him.

The other alternative, of course is to go the Hugo Chavez route. Forget the 30 or so drafts of the latest Sotu, the spit-polished rhetoric and the endless rehearsals in the White House theatre, the bombastic president of Venezuela has his own TV show at prime-time every Sunday.

No script, no rehearsal, no eye on the ratings. Pure stream of consciousness it can run four, five, six hours, depending on the whim of the broadcaster in chief.

But then Venezuela doesn't have Desperate Housewives!

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