is it really necessary?

[Jim in CT]

And in terms of stacking the audience with beneficiaries of his programs, they all do that. Bush had some Iraqi citizens with the purple ink on their fingers from their spectacularly successful and free elections. Seems like a long, LONG, time ago.

i have no problem with Obama putting an ilegal alien in the crowd to humanize the issue, it's important to remember that we are talking about human beings. Similarly, I would love a Republican president to have an abortion survivor in the State of the Union audience to humanize that issue. But union members? "hey, I gave money to that guy, and he therefore thinks I'm swell! Keep voting for liberals, and we can give everybody a fat check, because there's no downside to that, right? All we need to do is raise taxes on the billionaires by 0.000001%, and we'll all be wiping our noses with $100 bills, but the Tea Party won't allow it because I'm black. Or is it because of global warming? Or white male priviledge? Or because of racisthatecrimeintolerant?"