The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “No ‘Buck Stops Here’ Moment for Obama”–headline, Weekly Standard website, Jan. 26
  • “Canadian Soccer Coach Building Towards 2014”–headline, CBC.ca, Jan. 25

Little Green Pupils
“Mars Area Awards Contracts for School Construction”–headline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 26

The Case for Bipartisan Seating
Before last night’s speech, we had been inclined to think that “bipartisan seating” was a silly gimmick. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California thinks it was a good idea, as the Daily Caller reports:

Boxer appeared on MSNBC’s special State of the Union night edition of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” O’Donnell asked Boxer and her “date,” Rep. John Mica, Florida Republican, if this seating arrangement made a difference.

“I think so,” Boxer said. “. . . I don’t know whether John felt it but I felt in the audience those of us who were sitting in a different configuration, I think it was less of a kind of a cheering squad for the president, or a booing squad if you will.”

And that was the difference in changing the mood of the room, Boxer explained.

“We just, I think it was kind of more grown up,” Boxer said. “I don’t know–it just seemed more appropriate the way we were responding to the president. . . .”

We never thought we’d say this, but: Ma’am, you are absolutely right. Watching at home, we noticed there was a lot less of the annoying partisan ovation that normally turns an overlong speech into an interminable one. (The exception was during the portion in which the president defended ObamaCare.) The experiment was a success. Here’s hoping it becomes a tradition.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg reports, six Supreme Court justices attended the speech. The no-shows were Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, neither of whom has attended in some time, and Samuel Alito, who last year was caught on camera muttering a dissent at President Obama’s scurrilous and demagogic denunciation of Citizens United v. FEC, [during last year’s State of the Union, Obama criticized the Supreme Court justices for their decision] a landmark First Amendment case.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of Citizens United, attended last night, as did Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four Democratic nominees. We didn’t see any close-ups of the justices, but from afar we noticed that Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed to be having trouble staying awake. Your honor, we felt your fatigue.

Last March, the Los Angeles Times reported that Roberts told a group of law students “that he found it ‘very troubling’ to be surrounded by loudly cheering critics at President Obama’s State of the Union address, saying it was reason enough for the justices not to attend the annual speech to Congress”:

“To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we are there,” Roberts said at the University of Alabama School of Law.

He made a wise choice in attending this year anyway. Had Roberts stayed home and the Democratic nominees all gone, it would have put Justice Kennedy in the awkward position of casting a metaphorical vote for or against the president of the United States. The chief justice diffused the political tension the president had created with his outrageous attack last year. And at least Obama did not dare mention the court again last night.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”