I understand Ponnuru's feeling towards Trump but on it's face I agree with this sentiment.

I've said in another posts that Trump should mail it in with copies to local newspapers, I.e. Toledo Blade, Richmond Times, not NYT or WaPo, blogs and radio. I'd by pass MSM and congress as much as possible. I've long been tired of the State of the Union and the rebuttals that follow. I'd hoped Trump would have not done the first one. Trump has already done away with some of the pomp and circumstance that goes with the modern Presidency. The first that I noticed was he just signs a bill, with one pen, and not the production that has gone with it handing out pens to every a-hole congress person in the room.
I forget what the first bill he signed was but I remember seeing Pelosi standing with her with her pen in hand trying to get the President to use it but he just signed the bill and put his pen in his pocket. Personally, I think this is the stuff that irks them the most, his failure to see them as the anointed. In Trump's mind he and they are civil servants nothing more.