Paul Sassone

I didn’t watch the State of the Union address the other night.

That’s not necessarily a political judgment. I never watch these speeches, even if I voted for the person giving them.

I learned a long time ago I wasn’t going to learn anything important from State of the Union addresses.

These addresses are almost all propaganda, political spin in which the President boasts of his real or imagined or exaggerated accomplishments.

We need more political spin like Illinois needs colder winters.

Spin-centered speeches also leave out inconvenient issues and problems. If a problem doesn’t fit in with the portrait of America the President is painting he leaves it out.

I’m sure the President did not mention hunger and homelessness in his address.

Why should he?

Hunger and homelessness are not on his agenda. They don’t seem to be on anyone’s agenda, Republican or Democrat, these days.

Yet, these are serious problems eating at the very fabric of American life.

It is estimated 500,000 Americans are homeless.

And more than 41 million Americans suffer from hunger.

If these are not huge problems, I don’t know what is.

Yet, there is nothing in the State of the Union address as to how to lessen poverty and hunger — or even try.

The President may think the state of the union is tip top.

To me, the state of the union is not so hot.

—We need more political spin like Illinois needs colder winters–