1) Let me tease JJM and Rich a little: I might be persuaded to back the abolition of the State of the Union address, as we have known it, for one reason: I’m sick, every January, of hearing people whinily call for the abolition of the State of the Union. All right already! If it would make you happy …!

Here’s the thing: Nobody has to watch the State of the Union. That “spectacle.” Nobody. If it’s not for you — don’t watch it. You know? Aren’t we all good libertarians around here? (Heh.) Don’t tread on me, man! Keep your rosaries off my ovaries! Etc.

What are you, Czar of the World? You don’t like it, so nobody else can have it?

2) American Sniper has obviously hit a nerve on the left. It’s easy to see why: It’s a positive portrayal of an American military man.

When I was growing up, soldiers in movies tended to be one of two things (American soldiers, I’m talking about): villains or victims. They were either crazed baby-killers. Or they were victims of the Establishment that sent them into war.

(“Establishment” used to be a very big word on the left. Now it’s a very big word on the right.)

American Sniper is something else. Its protagonist is neither villain nor victim. (He does meet a tragic end, true. And war is never without tragedy, and horror, and victimization.)

In their sniffing or shrieking, people are saying that the movie is not accurate in every detail. Like, maybe, the movie celebrating Valerie Plame? You were okay with that one?

I guess soldiers are allowed to be heroic or admirable in World War II. Korea? Not sure. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq? Clint also made a Grenada movie — a lot of people didn’t like that, for political reasons.

The Left is supposed to own the movies. Conservatives are supposed to be content with talk radio, country music, and NASCAR. That may be part of the Left’s current heartburn too. We are bugging them on their own territory.

On the Upper West Side this noon, I was listening to the elderly couple at the table next to me gripe about American Sniper. They were both Oscar voters, apparently. Yet American Sniper has been nominated — which is refreshing, I think.

Anyway, nice goin’, Clint (again).

3) I have three posts for the music-minded. This is about Anne Sofie von Otter, the Swedish mezzo, who taught a master class. This is about the English pianist Stephen Hough and the Dvorak Piano Concerto. And this is about a performance of Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann at the Metropolitan Opera.

I like to cite a quip of Shostakovich’s: “I like all music, from Bach to Offenbach.” He made that statement in the 1920s, probably. He would have to update it now. But it’s a nice line.

Happy SotU, everybody! (Let me know how it was! Or not!)