10 Guesses Why SF Mayor Ed Lee Is Sitting With Michelle Obama at SOTU

membership ticker

Do you give a damn about the future of this country?

The guardrails protecting democracy may have buckled, but they are not broken. Autocratic forces are ascendant in America—yes, it can happen here, and did—but the story isn’t fully written. Truth-telling independent media is one remaining bulwark against Trump’s unrestrained exercise of power. He rails against the press as the “enemy of the people,” because like all liars and extremists, he hates the scrutiny that comes from fearless investigative reporting. Our nonprofit newsroom is built for the chaos and uncertainty ahead. Depend on it, and please stand with us.

The guardrails protecting democracy may have buckled, but they are not broken. Autocratic forces are ascendant in America, but the story isn’t fully written. Truth-telling independent media is one remaining bulwark against Trump’s unrestrained exercise of power. He rails against the press as the “enemy of the people,” because he hates the scrutiny that comes from fearless investigative reporting. Our nonprofit newsroom is built for the chaos ahead. Please stand with us.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/commonwealthclub/6925009778/sizes/z/">Commonwealth Club</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

First Lady Michelle Obama has invited San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to sit in her box during the State of the Union Speech tonight, but she didn’t specify why. All we know is that she’s continuing a longstanding tradition of inviting “extraordinary Americans who exemplify the themes and ideals laid out in the State of the Union Address,” as the White House puts it.

A former city bureaucrat who was first appointed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to replace Mayor Gavin Newsom before winning re-election, Lee is considered popular and competent but not particularly extraordinary—except for the fact that he’s the…oh, wait, he’s only the second Asian-American mayor of a major US city. (The first was San Jose’s Norm Mineta, who later became Transportation Secretary under George W. Bush.) So why was Lee invited? Was it because he proposed a $15 minimum wage for a city whose $10.55 minimum is already the nation’s highest? Or perhaps because he rallied Silicon Valley around immigration reform?

Here are 10 other possibilities:

Obama is settling for Lee because he couldn’t get Bat Kid.
The president is set to announce a transcontinental Google Bus route.
In the future, $4 toast will be a mandatory minimum benefit in Obamacare plans.
Rose Pak
Maybe he has some techie friends who know how to fix a website.
Exporting your poor and middle-class people to other cities is a great model for fighting income inequality.
The Fear the Moustache meme is still too legit to quit.
The President feels guilty for that time when the Giants won the World Series but Lee couldn’t get into the White House party because his name wasn’t on the list.
Lee is the last Californian the Secret Service would suspect of being a marijuana courier.
If you live in DC but crash on your San Francisco friend’s couch when you’re in town for business, it’s probably a good idea to return the favor once or twice. The same logic applies to political fundraising. See you in Presidio Heights, Ed.