Please don't do that again, Katie Britt | GARY COSBY JR.

I tried, I really tried, but I couldn’t make it through the full State of the Union address or the Republican response. I was expecting a poor performance by President Joe Biden and a strong response by Alabama Sen. Katie Britt. Boy, was I shockingly wrong.

Biden was, for lack of a better word, feisty. I watched highlights of the speech the day after it happened. I didn’t make it all the way through even the highlights, but Biden was very aggressive and got all up in the faces of the congressional Republicans. I was somewhat surprised by that. That he seemed lucid and mentally sharp was … good, surprising, hopeful? I don’t know, but since the nation worries over his mental capacity, seeing that he still has some sharpness was a good thing.

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And then there was Marjorie Taylor Green sitting there in her MAGA hat. Lord have mercy. It’s hard to have words for her, either: uncouth, disrespectful, garish? I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I’m having trouble finding words that suit her.

I was actually looking forward to hearing Katie Britt. There are very few people in the Congress that inspire anything other than dismay or disgust for me, but Britt is one for whom I have held my breath and had my fingers crossed because the times I’ve seen her and heard her speak have given me a spark of hope for the future.

My daughter, who is a decided liberal ― that’s not strong enough ― she’s emphatically liberal, texted me late that night after hearing Britt’s response. She was up in arms over it. I had not yet attempted to watch the response, but her dismay over it caused me to wake up — I was asleep when she texted — and watch.

I couldn’t make it very far. It was … Again, words desert me. Horrible is the first word that came to mind. Disappointing, cringe-worthy. Having seen Britt in person and heard her speak live two or three times, I was shocked if not horrified by her performance. She is dynamic, energetic, full of life and, I think, vision. But not during that speech.

That response was … condescending, unfathomable, inaccurate. I mean, I hope to heaven that Britt did not write that speech, that she was toeing the company line, so to speak. If someone wrote that for her, he or she should be fired on the spot. And whoever came up with the idea of putting her in the kitchen, I mean, what were you thinking? Fire that person too, and quickly.

I think Britt could be the Republican nominee for president in 2028, so I was deeply disappointed in her performance. Even the little bit of it I watched had statements that were blatantly false. I mean, really? President Donald Trump had the most secure border in U.S. history? Lord help us. If that’s actually what she believes, I retract my statement about her being president.

I know the public memory is short. The very fact that Trump has any shot at the presidency reflects that. I mean, to support the man you have to swallow lies the size of Texas, ignore a stack of criminal indictments that stretch about half way to the moon, and forget that he attempted a coup to overthrow the U.S. government. But other than that, sure, he’s OK. Well, unless you count the sexual assault, affairs with porn stars and such, but other than that …

But I digress. For Britt's sake, I hope the public memory is very short as it regards that speech. From the bit I know about her, and the personality I’ve seen from her in the past, I am willing to throw that speech out as an anomaly, an outlier forced upon her by power brokers inside the party. At least, I hope so.

The tone of her speech reminded me of those soap operas from the 1970s that my babysitter used to watch when I was a small child. It felt like I was watching a bad actress on one of those old shows. I expected organ music to start playing in the background at any minute and a cut to a commercial with “These are the Days of our Republic” or “As the Nation Turns” to flash across the screen.

I had hoped to see a dynamic Katie Britt giving a dynamic speech and laying out a vision for the future that would inspire hope. I think she is capable of that. I know she is capable of it. I’ve seen her do it before. I hope that this was, as I said, an anomaly, kind of like a really bad at-bat for a baseball or softball player who normally hits .400. Even the best have bad plate appearances.

I truly hope that is what this speech was and I equally hope that Britt puts this episode behind her and never again listens to whomever it was who thought this was a good idea. I want to see her dynamism, her energy, and her hope. What I don’t want to see is … well, what we saw in that speech.

Gary Cosby Jr. can be reached at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Katie Britt fumbles State of the Union response | GARY COSBY JR.