You know where I stand on it. All I can say to try to hype it and make it worth your while to watch is that, when it comes to all things Trump, you never know. There’s a 99 percent chance that he’ll stick scrupulously to the script, projecting “strength” on topics like immigration and North Korea tempered with an invitation to compromise if the two sides in each case can be reasonable. It’ll be dull, it’ll run too long, he’ll overpromise — not because of any fault of his but because this is how State of the Union speeches go. You’ve seen this show before. You know how terrible it is.

But you never know. With Clinton, Bush, and Obama, there was a 100 percent chance of tedium. With Trump, even when he’s on his best behavior there’s a nagging one percent chance that he’ll tear up the script, have all the illegals in the gallery arrested, start goofing on Kim Jong Un’s weight, and fire Rod Rosenstein live while he’s at the podium. You can’t ever completely write off an event at which a loose cannon is firing. He could blow up anyone and anything. Imagine how much you’d hate yourself if he went off and you weren’t watching.

I’d personally never forgive myself if he really did have ICE intercept illegals in the Capitol who were brought as guests of Democratic members and I was busy watching something else. DACA enrollees are here legally, of course, unless and until Trump decides to end the program. But what if some Dems decide to show their powerful commitment to erasing America’s borders by bringing adult illegals to the show, to flaunt their ability to move around America with impunity? GOP Rep. Paul Gosar knows what to do:

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., has asked U.S. Capitol Police and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to consider arresting and deporting illegal immigrants who attend President Trump’s first official State of the Union on Tuesday.

“Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress,” Gosar said on Twitter ahead of Trump’s address. “Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported.”

Ann Coulter wants any Democrats who invite illegals arrested as well:

COULTER: I’ve also heard they’re planning on inviting illegal aliens. So Jeff Sessions better be ready to arrest all of them for conspiring to commit a crime, which I believe is a felony under federal law in all 50 states, even if the crime itself is not a felony. I mean, they had to have meetings, they had to make a phone call. These are people who are in the country illegally and anyone conspiring with them to keep them here illegally, to invite them to a State of the Union address, Jeff Sessions should have them all arrested and I mean the congressmen.

Trump and Sessions won’t arrest any Democrats and probably won’t arrest any illegals, as that’ll … complicate negotiations on a DACA fix, especially since Trump is likely to extend an olive branch to Schumer and Pelosi on a DACA fix in his speech. But as I say, this is why it’s worth watching. You never know.

There are other intimations of buzzworthy surprises:

Source tells @Acosta that Trump will talk about North Korean threat in "strong and serious way" tonight. "It will be eye opening," person said, predicting it will drive headlines.

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 30, 2018

Trump being Trump, he understands that no great show is complete without a surprise guest too:

Senior administration official tells @tarapalmeri there will be a yet-to-be-announced surprise guest at #SOTU tonight

— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) January 30, 2018

My guess: It’s Steve Bannon on a leash, in a gimp mask. POTUS will do well tonight, I expect, just as he did well in his address to a joint session of Congress last year, although any bounce in the polls will be fleeting. Again, that’s how it always is with these things; maybe in the first flush of the speech (certainly in the overnight polling) he’ll get good marks but public sentiment will return to the status quo quickly. That’s especially true with Trump, actually., since his bouts of “presidential behavior” last only until the next “Fox & Friends” segment he sees that infuriates him and has him reaching for his phone. Even if he gets through the evening without making any false moves, it’s possible he’ll be on Twitter at 5 a.m. tomorrow calling Rosenstein a “cuck” or lashing out at Stormy Daniels, who’s set to appear on Jimmy Kimmel’s show after tonight’s address. You never know.

The speech begins at 9 p.m. ET and will air … everywhere, essentially. Comments are open for your enjoyment. Here’s the handy dandy Hot Air/Townhall Twitter widget, which will collect instant reaction, fact checks, and snarky jokes from various commentators as the speech wears on. Why wait for the Fox News or CNN panels at 10:15 when you can get your fill of hot takes in real time?

Tweets from https://twitter.com/allahpundit/lists/ha-townhall