This column is going to be the equivalent to what situation comedy television programs call a "clip show." This is when the producers get so lazy that they spend an entire show just essentially presenting their "greatest clips," only loosely held together by original scriptwriting. Saves time, saves money, and even though the audiences hate it, well, it gives everyone else a break. This is all in the way of informing you that most of this column will be excerpts from columns written roughly a year ago, on the subject of what the chances of immigration reform passing Congress truly were (and, at the end, now are).

What prompted this column (clippy though it may be) was the breaking news that House Republicans have leaked a two-page document to the press outlining their priorities in new immigration bills. The first thing they stress is the plurality of that last word -- as in "bills," and not "bill." Republicans have, of late, developed a bizarre and unreasonable fear over legislation that they consider long and hard to read. They score some sort of political points with their base by opposing such bills, which is inexplicable outside of that base, so we'll just accept it as fact so we can all then move along. The House Republicans will have lots of little bills rather than one big bill -- that's a given, at this point.

The second thing which has emerged from the recent Republican navel-gazing retreat is that they have (so far) masterfully rebranded one of the key provisions of the Senate comprehensive immigration bill. It is no longer a "path to citizenship," it is now a "special path to citizenship." This is somewhat insidious, because "special" is not exactly a neutral word in American politics (think: "special interests" to see what I mean -- more on this tomorrow, in our weekly column on political framing). There's a third insidious little item in the House Republicans' positioning paper, but I'll get to that in due course.

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Last night, President Obama gave his annual address to Congress and the American people. Reactions, as usual, were all over the map. Listening to some of them, though, I found myself wondering what will happen if the conventional Washington wisdom proves wrong in the 2014 midterm election. Because while I didn't actually hear anyone toss out the "lame duck" term to describe Obama, most commentators were assuming that it's going to be a good Republican year at the polls, and that the only real question is whether Republicans will win control of the Senate or not. But what if this proves not to be true? Call me a cock-eyed optimist if you will, but I couldn't help wondering how different next year's State Of The Union speech will be if Democrats have a much better year than expected, and not only hold the Senate but win control of the House.

Please understand, I'm not giving the odds of it happening here. Calling House races is incredibly tough to do in any midterm year, since there are over 400 of them to watch. So I truly have no concrete idea what the possibility is that Democrats will have such a good election season. But it is not outside the realm of probability, either -- even though, to hear the pundits talk, we might as well just all stay home and not bother voting because the Republicans have the whole thing sewn up already. But pundits are often wrong in their predictions. This is what led me to ponder what Obama's final two years in office would be like if he had a Democratic-led Congress.

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OK, as usual, I'm sitting down to write this without really dipping into the oceans of ink (and electrons) that are being spilled right now by other pundits, so that my reactions to both the "State Of The Union" speech and the Republican response are untainted by either groupthink or the herd mentality. So there's a very good chance (as always) that what I thought will be a long way away from what others think (on both sides of the aisle). And, as usual, I'll be expounding on the speech in a rather random, stream-of-consciousness manner (because it is late, and my brain is numb from an hour and a half of political oratory). Just to warn everyone, up front.

One thing I've got to point out, too (before we get started), for anyone interested in some history about the State Of The Union speech -- the Washington Post has a wonderful reprint of an article from their archives up on their site right now. It was written in response to the news that Woodrow Wilson would be giving an actual speech (which hadn't been done in 112 years) to a joint session of Congress. It is absolutely fascinating look (it's a fairly long) into the politics of the time, right down to the forms of address used ("fellow Americans" is sneered at as being too Frenchified, believe it or not, as Republicans in the South were still fans of "gentlemen" as an all-encompassing form of address). In any case, check it out, fellow history buffs, as it's a great read that shows the origins of all the modern State Of The Union hoopla. OK, enough history, let's get on with what happened this evening.

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Program Note: Today's regular column is still scheduled for publication soon after tonight's State Of The Union address to Congress and the nation.

But before we get to politics, we would like to take the time to mark the passing of a great American, Pete Seeger. To do so is easy, because all we have to do is reprint the lyrics of one of his best-known songs. Actually, Pete himself just wrote the music and (as he put it) "six words." He was speaking of the final six words to the song, which is the only truly original lyric in it. The rest was rearranged from Bible verses (specifically, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), and was the first time the Bible reached number one on the music charts. But Pete did write the music for the song, and he did arrange it beautifully and he did put the chorus together (along with a seventh word, repeated six times).

Plus, it is a wonderful way to remember a man who brought joy to millions through his gift of music. The only better epitaph for the kind of man Pete Seeger was comes from his grandson, who noted "he was chopping wood ten days ago."

Pete Seeger was 94 years old.

Requiescat In Pace.

We'll miss you, Pete.

-- Chris Weigant

Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)

 

(Chorus)
To everything (Turn! Turn! Turn!)
There is a season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)
And a time for every purpose
Under Heaven

 

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

(Chorus)

 

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

(Chorus)

 

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

(Chorus)

 

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it's not too late.

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

As the city of Washington prepares for its time in the spotlight tomorrow night (the "State Of The Union" speech being approximately Washington's "Oscar night" on primetime television), pundits will go into overdrive on the question of "what it all means," for roughly the next week or so. Every paragraph of the speech will be examined microscopically, supporters will cheer, opponents will boo, and conclusions will be drawn among the inside-the-Beltway set.

All well and good, and all to be expected from the president's annual "laundry list." But before we even get to that point, it's worth pointing out that Obama seems to be making a recovery of sorts in the public eye. Now, this trendline is rather fragile, and could change overnight. Then again, Obama seems positioned pretty well to ride out the next few months, at the very least. If he rolls out some executive action on issues wildly popular with the public during this time period, then he could make a complete recovery, politically. It goes without saying that this would help out the Democrats later in the year, during the midterms.

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Before we get to the marijuana news (and speculation), while Congress was off on yet another week-long vacation, there were a flurry of reports issued from various groups studying various aspects of America. The picture on income inequality is just as bad as everyone thought it was, one of these revealed. A blue-ribbon commission created after last year's State Of The Union address reported back (just before their year was up) on what could be done to improve voting access in America -- which was mostly ignored by politicians and the media alike, sad to say.

President Obama gave a speech last week on national security, spying, and the National Security Agency, which didn't do much to mollify his critics on the civil liberties side of things. This week, a group formed to study the N.S.A. spying concluded that the sweep of all telephony metadata was just flat-out unconstitutional, didn't aid in tracking down terrorists, and should be immediately stopped.

In the world of political commentary, right-wing mouthpiece Dinesh D'Souza was indicted for breaking campaign contributions laws. So maybe he'll be too busy during the next election cycle to put out propaganda movies, who knows?

The Republican War On Women went rolling merrily along, but we're going to devote most of the talking points this week to that subject, so we'll just mention it in passing. Here's a preview: Mike Huckabee has a starring role, this week.

OK, enough of the peripheral issues. Let's get back to that rather provocative headline, instead.

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Some in the political world shy away from insanely-early election analysis. It is somehow unseemly (or even downright shameful), these people tell us, to indulge in speculation about an election too far in advance. These are the same type of people who point out that there's an election this year to get through first, for Pete's sake.

We don't listen to these people, however, so we'd like to welcome you to our first article to take a hard look at the 2016 election. We're going to engage in some rampant speculation not just (as some are doing) over the primary races, but indeed over how Democrats and Republicans are positioned for the general election itself. In specific, predicting how the Electoral College will vote by delving into a state-by-state statistical analysis of voting trends.

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A new and extensive interview with President Obama recently appeared in the pages of The New Yorker magazine. In the middle of this wide-ranging piece there is a short section where interviewer David Remnick asks the president -- after previously discussing his "evolution" on gay marriage -- about his views on marijuana and the law. Obama answered with as honest an evaluation as I think I have ever heard from an occupant of the Oval Office, during my entire lifetime. Which makes me wonder a bit, since it is indeed that season of year when presidents traditionally "run a few things up the flagpole to see who salutes" (as they say). In the weeks just before the State Of The Union address, pet policy ideas are often floated in just such a fashion, in an attempt to gauge public reaction to new ideas or proposals. Perhaps I'm wrong about all of this, but the timing did seem more than a little coincidental.

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For those of you not up on the lingo of the marijuana subculture, that headline is meant to be a pun of sorts, combining the Super Bowl (more on this in a moment) with the phrase "packing a bowl." Barack Obama, back in his "Choom Gang" days, would certainly have known what this is meant to refer to -- cramming marijuana in the bowl of a pipe constructed to smoke the substance.

Some might consider that opening paragraph a bit overdone (these people will also find this second paragraph overdone as well, we venture to guess). But we do aim to be as clear as possible here, in order to explain what may be a foreign concept to our readers at home. Some might also criticize the fight for marijuana rights to be overdone in general in these columns. They might have a point, there. For the first full year of this blog (2007), a quick search turns up just eight articles using the word "marijuana." From 2009 to 2011, the range was 15-18 articles per year (one of which laid out my own serious position on the issue, calling on President Obama to fulfill his campaign promises for a science-based drug policy). But 2012 saw 26 articles and last year a whopping 38 articles ran which mentioned marijuana. Indeed, we're only three weeks into January and I've already written three articles on the subject (not counting this one). This week I plan on writing at least two. So accusations that I'm getting more focused on the subject might be justified. However, I maintain that it is not so much that I am writing more about marijuana "just because," but rather that marijuana has been much more in the political news of late. This trend is not going to subside any time soon, either. In 2007, two articles out of those eight were on a Supreme Court case (the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case) that was really about free speech and didn't have anything directly to do with marijuana laws; whereas in 2012 two states voted to just outright legalize recreational weed. My point is that the marijuana rights movement seems to have acquired some sort of critical mass, and will be rolling forward with increasing speed in the coming years. Leading to more and more marijuana political news. Leading to more columns on the subject in this space.

That's a highfalutin' defense of my subject choice, but I have to say that none of it applies to what I'm about to comment on. Because today it's time for just some rampant silliness on the subject.

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Most years, I celebrate the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior's birthday by reprinting excerpts of his speeches, in an attempt to combat the continued watering-down of his legacy into nothing short of warm fuzzy memories that he was fighting for "equality" in some sort of non-confrontational way. You will be able to see this sort of gauzy, carefully-edited theme on just about any network news broadcast this evening, and it is a real shame because it ignores the radical positions King bravely took in life.

But this year, the focus really needs to be on how the federal government saw King. Most especially since, over the weekend, there was what seemed like a concerted effort by congressional Republicans to state (without a shred of evidence or facts to back it up) that Edward Snowden was somehow a sinister foreign agent of, perhaps... oh, I don't know... Russia? This sort of innuendo campaign is, sadly, not a recent development in American politics. Which brings us back to King, and J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I.

Almost immediately after Martin Luther King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Council (S.C.L.C.) in 1957, the F.B.I. began a trail of internal memos warning that the group was "a likely target for communist infiltration." Within a year, King had his own personal F.B.I. file. But it wasn't until 1962 that surveillance of King would be ratcheted up -- which was approved personally by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. By November of 1963, all of King's phones -- both at home and at the S.C.L.C.'s offices -- would be wiretapped.

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