The lengthy applause should be an opportunity for quick thinking analysts to debunk and explain what is being said and done during presidential speeches.
As a basis, in 2003, just before the Iraq invasion, the Institute for Public Accuracy (where I work) did this in text form for Bush's State of the Union address. I should note, parenthetically, that this is one of many documents that shows how absured a notion it is for people to claim that we know Bush lied only after the invasion of Iraq; infact, anyone who cared to knew that Bush was lying before the war.
In 2003, it took sleepless days to assemble the crit online. This week, IPA did it in real time with Obama's healthcare -- or sickcare as my friend Jabari Zakiya likes to call it -- speech.
Contemporaneous crits should be done via audio and video by media outlets purporting authentic independence, rather like Colbert's "The Word" segments, or even the comments onMystery Science Theater or pop-up videos. Entertainment TV has produced alot of things to try to pack more dubious "substance" into less time -- authentic news (as opposed to phony corporate news) needs to go far beyond to get real substance to people in a factual, concise, witty fashion.
In the case of presidential speeches it is made easier since there's the lengthy, vacuous applause providing the air time -- and the White House frequently release partial text shortly before the speeches, giving the analysts a head start.
[originally published at husseini.org on Sept. 11, 2009]