When They Play ''Hail to the Chief,'' Go Online!

I had loads of fun live-blogging the State of the Union speech with WNYC's Brian Lehrer -- and they got something like five times more participants than their old record. The West Coast delivers!

We'll be analyzing the President's speech on Thursday, going down a checklist of issues as to what he addressed and what he didn't. On a crossover point, the Supreme Court justices sit down in front at the State of the Union speech, but they're not supposed to react to anything. Not this time: when President Obama said that the court ruling lifting restrictions on campaign finance millions, and letting foreign corporations with an American presence put money into U.S. elections, Associate Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words ''Not true.'' I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about that moment.

Especially interesting because we spent part of Wednesday's program with Joan Biskupic, longtime Supreme Court reporter and author of a new biography of Antonin Scalia, in which the justice cooperated with Biskupic. The book gives enough information to let people decide about Scalia for themselves, but the way Biskupic lays it out, his strict-constructionism is shown to be in contrast with his activist decisions in Bush v. Gore in 2000, and the court's new ruling on sky's-the-limit campaign contributions.

As an aside and an insight, I have to say how disappointed I am in some very well-paid public figures. PR people and members of Congress often tell our producers that they won't be on the air at the same time as their opponents. This is so disappointing -- listeners would be so much better informed if the people who have vested interests in any argument would engage with the opposition and let listeners make up their own minds. It's kind of wussy, frankly, that figures who debate one another in the cut and thrust of Congressional discussion can't come on a radio program to do the same thing -- ditto for professional and well-paid spokesmen and spokeswomen who shy away from answering the oppositions's arguments, to help all of you make up your minds.

Hasta manana!

-- Patt Morrison