The after thought hits a home run

For reasons known only to him and his handlers, President Joe Biden decided to not call it the State of the Union, but something like an address to a joint session of Congress. (Yawn.) 

And, thus, Democrats kill another tradition..

Why?

So I decide to throttle another — my analysis of the president’s SOTU, as we journalists like to call it. 

Not the same order of gravity, I will admit.

I also will concede that, so far, Biden is a transformational president. 

Using COVID-19 as a cover, he is throwing more money at problems and so-called needs than I have seen any president do in my lifetime, and chances are that’s longer than yours.

Speaking of ginormous spending, in tone and manner he reminded me of another transformational president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, doing a quiet fireside chat. FDR remade America. By playing Santa, Biden is attempting to do the same. I will deal with his programs at a future date.

But for now, I decided to pay more attention to the Republican response, delivered by South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the GOP’s only Black senator. He was the after thought, in a sense.

Despite my advice, Biden mentioned “systemic racism” — twice, but very briefly.

I thought, and hoped, Scott would answer Biden.

I was not disappointed.

“America is not a racist country,” said Scott, standing before U.S. and South Carolina flags. “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”

Who would do such a thing?

“I have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it’s like to be pulled over for no reason, to be followed around in a store when I’m shopping,” he said. “I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom and the N-word by Progressives, by Liberals.”

His response was not really a response to Biden’s remarks. He had his own agenda.

“Race is not a weapon to settle every issue,” he said, defending the vilified Georgia voting law as actually expanding voting hours, and attacking critical race theory being taught in schools for defining people by their color.

In 2010, Scott was elected to the House, and when a Senate seat opened by resignation in 2012, Gov. Nikki Haley, a woman of color of Indian descent, appointed Scott to the Senate. He has since been reelected.

He grew up in his grandparents house, encouraged by a single mother, to achieve.

Like Biden, he called America the greatest nation on Earth, but added, “where my grandfather in his 94 years, saw his family go from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.”