Again, from the Vietnam War through the Iraq War to Syria, administrations have mis-stated reality, wittingly or otherwise. But as a routine matter, they have tried to avoid unnecessary distortions. Thus if you heard this speech with fresh ears, not knowing its origin, you would probably give it the benefit of the doubt by assuming that its factual claims had been through the standard vetting process.

Perhaps more important, you would probably also assume that there was an iceberg of policies—real ones, with budgetary estimates attached to them, and specific details, and decisions made about the toughest trade-offs—beneath those tips of conceptual goals that stuck up in the speech. If you say in the State of the Union that you’re taking a new approach to crime, then in normal administrations you’ve got a whole set of proposals ready for the Congress. If you say, as Trump did, that you want to spend $50 billion more on the military, you have specifics ready on how and why and where. If you promise to build a “great, great wall” or have a huge infrastructure program, you’re ready with the details on funding—and how, exactly, they match up with your simultaneous promises to cut taxes and reduce the deficit. If you’re taking up the two most contentious issues for your own party—in Trump’s case, what exactly to do about immigrants who are already here, and how exactly to “replace” Obamacare—you don’t make them major subjects of your speech unless you’ve already wrestled with them at a first-principles level. But Trump presented them the way you would in a campaign speech — as a set of goals and promises, with no indications of where the difficult lines will be drawn.

The same was true on nearly any point of substance. To wrap up this theme: If you heard this speech from another president, you might have had a more favorable reaction to it, because you would assume that the factual claims had been more carefully examined, and that the main policy objectives were backed up with ready-to-go proposals. When Barack Obama gave his initial address to Congress eight years ago this week, he explained the long-term goals of his $800 billion stimulus plan—which he had already presented to Congress six days after he took office, and which had passed both houses and taken effect before February was out. Something similar was true of Jimmy Carter with his energy legislation in 1977, and Ronald Reagan with his tax-cut plans four years later. Yes, moving too fast can cause problems, just like moving too slow. But we have no recent parallel for an administration with so few of the big questions answered (and so few senior officials in place to do the answering), so many weeks into its term.

Particularly Shocking: When I was working on State of the Union speeches in the 1970s, the “Lenny Skutnik” tradition did not yet exist. Skutnik was a young D.C.-based civil servant who in January, 1982 dived into the frigid Potomac to help rescue survivors of an airliner that had crashed into the river. For his State of the Union address two weeks later, Ronald Reagan invited Lenny Skutnik to sit next to Nancy Reagan in the First Lady’s box, and called him out in the speech as an example of American heroism. Ever since then, the First Lady’s box has included guests whose character or achievement illustrate themes the president would like to stress.