LET THE NIT-PICKING BEGIN.

The Speech from the Throne delivered the longitude as expected, and the platitude unburdened by Trumpian vamping.  Then came the nit-picking.  "CBS News fact checked President Trump's 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday night, in which he highlighted his record on the economy, immigration and tariffs, and also assessed a claim made by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger during her Democratic response."  Read it if you would like, if it's not nit-picking, it might be ankle-biting, or it might be rivet-counting.

The speech featured two centenarians, two Congressional Medals of Honor awarded, two Purple Hearts conferred, one posthumously, a Legion of Merit, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom by unanimous consent of the Olympians present.  Air Force aviator Royce Williams was one of the centenarians and earned a Medal of Honor for making ace against a fleet of Soviet MIG jets during the Korean War.  Nobody wanted to call attention to his exploit at the time as those jets had Soviet pilots and the United States officially were involved in a United Nations police action on behalf of the Republic of Korea.

That Presidential Medal of Freedom to the men's goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck, pushed Outside the Beltway's Steven Taylor into Trump Derangement territory.

On the one hand, good for Hellebuyck, I guess. However, I would note that he already got an award for winning the game, it’s called an Olympic Gold Medal. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

So, on the one hand, not the biggest abuse of power one could conjure, but on the other, I would argue that this is exactly the kind of thing a dictatorial mind does. I mean, he literally dictated the action from a podium at an official event to leverage patriotism to get applause. Trump loves unilateral displays of the power of the presidency, and he loves spectacle. He doesn’t care about past tradition or the weight given to these kinds of decisions; he just likes handing out (and receiving) awards.

This is also Trump using his personal power to politicize what should be a shared national point of pride.

I am guessing that the women’s goalie, Aerin Frankel, will not be similarly honored, despite also winning gold in Milan. That just adds a nice layer of Trumpian misogyny to the whole affair. Even if they decide to give it to Frankel, too, it will be because they feel politically cornered, not because they value the women’s victory the same as the men’s.

Then came the Democrats official response, which, as we noted yesterday, is always harder to carry off as it's written before the Speech from the Throne and it might be presented in a kitchen.  Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger chose to deliver her response from the Colonial Williamsburg House of Burgesses, and there was an audience seated on either side of her pulpit, as in the style of a choir loft, and they had instructions to clap.  Honestly, third-rate opera house claques have done a better job.  Maybe one of the other Democrat responses, either the one in Spanish or the furry show somewhere outside the Federal Capitol, would have been more fun.

The governor came off as smirking and unserious.  Kurt "People's Republic" Schlichter had to write his Wednesday column before she offered her response, and he had her scouted perfectly.

Spanberger tried to come across as a normal lady. She didn't do a very good job of it. She's awkward and weird, but she's precisely in the demographic of neurotic, hard-five wine women that the females and female submissive residents of blue northern Virginia swoon over. She successfully aped the mannerisms and modes of speaking of regular people enough to allow for Virginia to take a chance on a Democrat again after four years of success under relatively moderate Republican Glenn Youngkin. And the second she got sworn in, Democrats gerrymandered the whole state and began making plans to take your guns, raise your taxes, and to pour an endless stream of poop into the Potomac River. Great work, everybody.

Now the Democrats are looking to her as the template for pulling off the same scam across the United States, and she's getting a primo slot after the State of the Union address when she gives the Democrat response. But that's problematic for her and fakes like her.

Red State's Teri Cristoph watched it, and she saw what I saw.  "Abigail Spanberger's SOTU Rebuttal Was Just Plain Weird."  She didn't care for the claque either.  "Overall, the thing that was most noticeable about Spanberger's response was just how weird the whole thing was, especially the stilted applause from the crowd. It was as if every moment was scripted down to the second in order to keep her on track."

Now the speechifying is done and the cold civil war moves on to other fronts.