Obama's Heckling Thread

[Sheilbh]

Maybe you'd understand it better in terms of the President being not just the Head of Government but also the Head of State. Imagine someone heckling the Queen like that.

Oh I get that.  The difference is though that the Queen is studiously non-political.  The entire point of her is that theoretical top of the state is entirely removed from the political process, so that passions aren't excited and you wouldn't heckle.  Same reason the Armed Forces tend to be seen as having a special relationship with the Queen, she's sort of symbolic of the nation.  I mean even the Presidential systems I like are the ones that give the Presidency to elder statesmen as a sort-of lifetime achievement award rather than ones in which the Presidency is engaged in dirty politics on a daily basis.

That's why I wonder whether it would be the same if we had a President, or whether it is something to do with the Head of State thing.  I think we'd be as abusive to a President (though Wilson was out of line) because I think Britain no longer has any sense of deference to politicians.

The President has two bodies

This is the thing I don't get, the President's consubstantiality.  Sometimes he's just a politician, sometimes he represents the nation.  I'm not sure where the lines are or how that works.

IMO, this is pretty basic civility. I wouldn't heckle anyone giving a speech, much less the POTUS.

I've less of a problem with heckling.  It's a core part of our political system/pantomine

[Martinus]

Though I can't know because we don't have a President, maybe we'd always behave deferentially to them too?

Deference to the President is one of the things about American politics that has always struck me as a bit odd.  In our tradition you have at the executive (the Prime Minister).

Well, the President is the equivalent of the Queen for the UK/Canada. So don't think of him as the equivalent of the Prime Minister. In fact, the US is unique (among Republics) that it doesn't have a separate Prime Minister post that most Presidential Republics have (e.g. France, Germany or Poland).

[Viking]

I support having the army move into South Carolina and ending that menace once and for all.

I suggest calling up 75,000 90 day volunteers for the task.

[Eddie Teach]

Next time around, Wyoming will be the first state to secede.

[Rex Francorum]

We have long recognized that the Head of Government should not also hold the position of Head of State. 

Any particular reason for that?  I guess the value of a powerless figurehead is sort of lost on me.

Someone gave a very good reason just a few posts ago.

To give the President shit when he is acting as the President is to sort of shit on the nation as a whole.

Its a bit odd to say that your head of government is off limits.

Still, a lot of people want to abolish gg's job because it's a worthless one

[Malthus]

Its a bit odd to say that your head of government is off limits.

Um...maybe you missed the part where we call them all worse than Hitler?  When he is in public acting as the President you show him a bit of respect.  Then when you are done you pronounce him worse than Hitler.

It isn't rocket science here.

Someone gave a very good reason just a few posts ago.

I must have missed it.  Why have a position that doesn't do anything?  Seems like a waste of public money to me...not that we are bad at that or something.

Because the "head of state" has a ton of ceremonial functions. These aren't "useful' in the same way as actually governing the country is "useful", but they are necessary.

With two bodies - a ceremonial head of state, and a prime minister to govern - you can reserve all the awe-struck "they represent the nation"-type deference for the one, have him or her attend all the diplomatic bun-fests and bridge openings and the like, while the other gets on with business - and calling out "shame!" at the latter in the rough-and-tumble of parliament isn't sort of unpatriotic.

I mean, if there isn't a ceremonial head of state, the person whose job it is to actually govern has to do more of that cremonial and diplomatic crap, wasting his or her valuable time.

[Berkut]

I think yelling at someone who is giving a speech is a crass thing to do not matter what you call them.

[Sheilbh]

I think yelling at someone who is giving a speech is a crass thing to do not matter what you call them.

Yeah.  I think Wilson was out of line apparently some one else shouted 'Shame!' at one point during his death panel section too, similarly out of line.  But I've no problem with the booing or groaning of the Republicans except that I don't know if it's acceptable in the American context.

[Malthus]

I think yelling at someone who is giving a speech is a crass thing to do not matter what you call them.

Depends to an extent on the context and institutional tradition.

[The Minsky Moment]

[With two bodies - a ceremonial head of state, and a prime minister to govern - you can reserve all the awe-struck "they represent the nation"-type deference for the one, have him or her attend all the diplomatic bun-fests and bridge openings and the like

That's the theory, but the practice rarely works out because the people who get elected to the head of state position usually are time-serving nobodies.  For example, "awe-struck" is hardly the word that one would use in the presence of the likes of Giorgio Napolitano or Horst Kohler, yet they happen to be heads of the two largest and most important states in Europe.

Of course, you could always fall back on the prestige ( ) of a royal house, but that requires actually having a royal house that has some prestige and puts one at the risk of the fecklessness and genetic oddities that such dynasties are prone to give rise to from time-to-time.  You could get a bicycle monarch or a harmless stiff waver like Liz 2, but you could also get a disaster like Edward VIII.

EDIT: I would think this would be understood by Canadians - you guys have a hard enough time making your immediate southern neighbor and largest trading partner remember who your PM is; I doubt 1 in 10,000 would recognize the Governor General even if he plowed into them while escorted by an honor brigade of moose cavalry.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah.  I think Wilson was out of line apparently some one else shouted 'Shame!' at one point during his death panel section too, similarly out of line.  But I've no problem with the booing or groaning of the Republicans except that I don't know if it's acceptable in the American context.

I've never even seen booing and hissing during a State of the Union.  The standard method of demonstrating disapproval is through sitting on your hands and looking stony during the applause lines.

[Valmy]

I've never even seen booing and hissing during a State of the Union.  The standard method of demonstrating disapproval is through sitting on your hands and looking stony during the applause lines.

Yep there is a protocol and tradition and the hecklers broke those in this case.  Hopefully this sort of thing will not become standard fare in the future.

[Jacob]

I'm sick of the 'high road' approach.  All it does is make you irrelevant in politics these days.

How would you know?

[Martinus]

Yeah, I don't think the deference to the HoS has in practice a lot to do with whether he is depoliticized or not (I mean, in most Republics he will naturally be) but by a local tradition. Even in a country where there is a separate function of a prime minister, the president can take an active political role and still be offered some deference (e.g. France, Russia or Poland).

[Sheilbh]

I've never even seen booing and hissing during a State of the Union.  The standard method of demonstrating disapproval is through sitting on your hands and looking stony during the applause lines.

Apparently it happened to Bush in 2005 over Social Security and to Clinton in 93, 95, 97 and 98.