Before the State of the Union, I decided to drop by the
Smithsonian Institution. I was walking through the
Museum of American History
and stopped at an exhibit about the American flag that was hoisted over
Fort McHenry on the morning of Sept. 14, 1814, that signaled the fort
had withstood a furious British bombardment the night before.
Several days before the battle, a young lawyer named
Francis Scott Key
had been taken prisoner by the British and was confined to one of their
ships lying just offshore. Key watched the battle rage through the
night and without modern communications, had no idea of the outcome
until he saw a huge American flag still waving above the fort in the
dawn's early light. His pride in his country's triumph inspired him to
write "
The Star Spangled Banner."
Seeing this enormous flag (30 feet by 42 feet) only a few feet away
from me and thinking about its history gave me goose bumps. While I was
looking at the flag, several dozen of my countrymen filed through the
viewing area. All seemed to be equally moved in its presence. There were
no
Democrats or
Republicans, no blacks or whites, no Christian or Muslim, just Americans, swelling with pride over the storied history of this flag.
What I witnessed at the State of Union address that night could not
have been more different. I am not necessarily referring to the speech
itself but rather the circus on the floor during the speech. About every
two or three minutes, all of the Democrats in the room would leap to
their feet to cheer one of President Obama's lines while the Republicans
would sit scowling with their arms crossed. The more partisan the
president's line, the more enthusiastic the Democratic response and the
more dour the Republican response.
In the last couple of years there have been attempts to get
Democratic and Republican members of Congress to sit together, but the
efforts have been largely unsuccessful. With some notable exceptions,
such as Rep.
Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, sitting with Rep.
Gabby Giffords,
the two parties' seating was mostly segregated. As a result, members in
about half of the room kept jumping to their feet while the members in
the other half sat on their hands. The whole spectacle could not have
been more sophomoric.
There were a few moments that united the room. The longest and
loudest applause from every corner of the room came when Giffords
entered the chamber. The parties also rose in applause together when the
president praised our troops. But those moments were exceptions.
Near the end of the president's speech, he said, "When we act
together, there is nothing the United States of America can't achieve."
It was one of the few lines of the speech that brought the entire
chamber to its feet. But after an hour of watching the partisan
reactions, the words, while grand, seemed hollow.
During my visits around the Capitol before and after the address, I
repeatedly heard how we should not expect much until after the election
on the major issues facing the country. On issue after issue, I heard
that the parties are just too deeply divided to find much consensus.
Both parties apparently believe that in the election to come, Americans
will give them some kind of a mandate to push their agendas.
But what if they do not? What if Americans refuse to endorse either
of the views that dominate the parties? What if voters once again decide
to return divided government to Washington because the thought of
either party being totally in control scares them to death? Do we then
have to wait until 2014 to tackle the problems facing our country? And
if not then, 2016? 2018? 2020?
In the same day I saw a symbol of America's past, one of unity of
purpose and vision, and one of America today, a state of disunion. The
question is which will represent America's future.
Email King at weking@weking.net or follow him on twitter.com/weking.
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