To me, one of the most uncomfortable features of the contemporary State of the Union speeches is the shout-out to people in the gallery, often in the first lady’s box, as exemplars of some quality the POTUS wants to praise or use as an example for the viewers’ edification. I doubt very much that the drafters at the Constitutional Convention had such Oprah-esque bathos in mind when they called on the executive to report to the legislative branch on the state of the union.   As so often happens when progressivism runs amok, the practice has now descended to the level of self-parody. Brent Scher reports in the Free Beacon: The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past. Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she...(Read Full Post)