If you love performances where half the audience is constantly interrupting with wild applause while the other half just sits there looking like the waitress just told them they were all out of hush puppies, then you were in your element Thursday night.
President Joe Biden gave his annual State of the Union address, and it was wonderful or awful depending on who you ask.
During the speech he acknowledged a guest in the first lady's box seats. Latorya Beasley of Birmingham, the president said, has had one child through in vitro fertilization and was hoping to have another, but that the Alabama Supreme Court "shut down IVF clinics across the state." He also called on Congress to pass legislation protecting IVF.
The state high court, of course, had issued a ruling that led some IVF clinics in Alabama to suspend services to avoid legal jeopardy. A day before the president's speech, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a measure intended to protect IVF clinics from civil and criminal action over their handling of human embryos. It's likely a temporary fix with more possibly coming next year.
Alabama's U.S. Sen. Katie Britt delivered the traditional opposition response to Biden's speech. She leaned heavily into the southern border issue, recalling a meeting with a trafficking victim and calling out Biden over policies she said allowed for the death of University of Georgia student Laken Riley. The suspect in that case is in the country illegally and had previously been arrested in connection with other crimes and released.
Criticism of her speech largely focused on the stylistic, that her delivery was overripe and that it was a bad idea to make her video backdrop the Britt family kitchen. Britt had explained at the top of her response that the kitchen table was a place where her family has had their tough conversations.
