The State of the Union should be an easy topic for a writer. It’s a televised event; you watch it; you react. 

But it’s actually quite challenging to find anything non-obvious to say about it, especially in 2024. Suspense around the address used to derive from what the president might say. Now, given his age, it derives from whether he might expire before the speech ends.

Joe Biden did not expire last night. Read any analysis today and that’s the top-line takeaway.

…

Then came Sen. Katie Britt to deliver the Republican rebuttal to Biden’s speech. Of her performance, the less said, the better. Watching it, I found myself wondering whether she had seized the opportunity to deliberately sabotage her chances of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate, mindful of how close the last guy who held that position came to being murdered.

There isn’t much else to say about Thursday night. Biden is plainly too old to serve competently for another four years, one “fiery and confident” address notwithstanding, and his agenda is too liberal to make any conservative happy.

I’ll be at the polls early on Election Day to vote for him.

Nick Catoggio, The State of Our Union