Who were the two random people in the State of the Union?

Do you mean the Vice President, Joe Biden, and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi?

How in the world did you not know that? Seriously.

I fear for the future.

Be thankful they aren’t just ‘random’ people. It could have been Mike Tyson and Sarah Palin if it was just random.

Wow delete this. I feel dumb. I didn’t know what they looked like. STOP ANSWERING NOW lol!!

I smell a troll.

yeah you’re right
that was weird
who was the black guy?

No, no. You’ve proudly displayed your ignorance, and now you’re going to have to take your well earned abuse.

And what about those nine guys up front in the black robes, who were they? One of the guys was an old lady.

Not to mention the guys in the outfits with metal hanging off them.

Oh, yeah, and who were all the other people in the room? It was pretty full. Just, like, random spectators, right?

Where was this, by the way?

@Jeruba no, not random – they were iPad reps.

@ragingloli

No not meaning to troll. I caught the end of it and my friends and I were making comments about the people in the background. We didn’t know who they were. I haven’t watched Fox news in a good 3–4 weeks. I used to watch The Factor all the time. For the past two years I stopped watching almost completely. I am very uninformed

Ahh it all makes sense now.

If you were watching Fox News, then you were always uninformed.

^ nailed it

@breedmitch srssly. man.

takes bows and high fives
Welcome home Dave

Now that we’ve gotten that straightened out, who’s going to demonstrate the correct way to spell our president’s first name?

I was laughing at “helpping”.

@nikipedia srssly. woman.

hmm, so i guess fluther is big on spell check?

@FlutherMe yeah, spell-check and facts and stuff.

butbutbut why would we come here to ask Questions if we already Knew?????????????

Sometimes you just wonder about the future of this country (sigh)

@FlutherMe If you are a high school graduate. you were taught (note I didn’t say you learned) that one of thr jobs of VP Joseph Biden (as stated in the Constitution) is president of the Senate. 3 years ago Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House of Reps. Every year in January the President (every president) speaks to Congress. (George Washington started it)

Now lets put it all together. The President is giving his traditional address to Congress. The leaders of Congress sit in their usual seats at the head of chambers.

What you were looking at was thr president and the next 2 people in line for his job. Further your impulse to visit violence on anyone whose looks you don’t like is evidence of you nescience

@galileogirl nescience…I love that word.

@FlutherMe
Good for you for asking but best to refrain from idiotic tirades. The Speaker of the House and the Vice President are always behind him during a formal Presidential Address and it’s also the chain of command in case something happens to one of them: President then Vice President then Speaker of the House.

The OP asked kind of an uneducated question, but I gotta admit Biden and Pelosi did kind of look stupid. Biden was nodding like a bobble head and Nancy had something in her teeth she was trying to work out early in the speech. That said, I give them credit for not falling asleep. No matter how stimulating a speech I would never have the attention span to sit through that whole thing. My mind would have been screaming play brick breaker…play brick breaker.

You should have seen the rude characters behind Geitner at his hearing this morning. Some of these people shouldn’t be allowed in the building if they’re going to be a distraction.

I couldn’t help thinking that if Nancy watches the playback of this, she’ll never let herself do that again.

I guess Fluther needs a Jaywalking award.

@FlutherMe Oh boy – you’re gonna have to work much harder to keep that nickname.

I like him fine, but Biden might have made a greater effort to stop scratching his face and hair in that old man kinda way. Yuck. No one wants to see that.

Yeah, I just wanted to point out that one can deck someone, and one can punch someone in the face, but one cannot deck someone in the face. If we’re going to engage in physical violence, let us keep out terminology correct.

Thanks for saying that, @Trillian. To deck someone means to knock a person down (floor him). My blue pencil has been itching since last night.

When I was a volunteer for a pledge drive on a local PBS station, they showed us a 10-minute training video that included what to do if you happened to be sitting behind the person with the mike—the on-camera pledge drive pitch person. This meant that you would be on camera too, in the background.

The video alerted us humorously but in strong terms to the fact that our behavior and mannerisms could be extremely distracting and that we were not to upstage the speaker. Even gazing off to the side as if something there were more interesting (as both Joe and Nancy did!) would draw attention away from the person on whom the camera was focused.

Too bad our VP and Speaker didn’t see that little video. I have a feeling they’ll be getting some remedial training today.

@Jeruba Pinches nostrils shut in a vain attempt to keep mirth from spilling out. Succeeds only in turning face red and making eyes squirt. I thought that might have caught your attention. ;-) Lurve!

@Jeruba
Apparently this is all subjective for I didn’t find them distracting in the least. Apart from being statues I can’t see how they could have been less of an issue. And Pelosi is practically a statue already.

More like figures from a wax museum. And less relevant.