Will Nancy Pelosi please sit down!

Last night I watched Barack Obama's State of the Union Address that wasn't really a State of the Union Address and had an insatiable urge to reach through the TV and violently beat Nancy Pelosi with her Speaker of the House gavel.

Pelosi was noticeably staring at the teleprompters and planning her next standing ovation throughout Obama's speech. There were several instances where she was halfway out of her chair when Obama was only halfway through his sentence. When she did restrain herself long enough for Obama to finish a sentence, she was up and clapping a good 5 seconds before Vice President Joe Biden, and everyone else.

So why does this bug me so much? It shows what she considers to be the most important part of the night. Pelosi didn't listen to what Obama had to say with a thoughtful and critical ear, she didn't think about his plans for reform and change. It seemed that only thing Pelosi was concerned about was making sure Obama got more standing ovations than any other president.

She gave Obama a standing ovation every time he proposed a new plan. She gave Obama a standing ovation every time he said anything pro-democrat or anti-republican. She probably would have given Obama a standing ovation every other sentence no matter what he said.

It reminded me of an episode of Jeopardy where a contestant is more concerned with beating everyone else to the buzzer than whether or not they even know the answer.

It was political grandstanding at its worse and was the embodiment of everything that is wrong with politics.