I was pleased to see that it was Sen. Joni Ernst giving the Republican response to President Obama’s SOTU address Tuesday night.

And I was pleased with what she said, at least in terms of its content.

I was not pleased, however, with her delivery. Her speech was well written, but the problem was that she was obviously reading it. She just doesn’t have the public speaking skills that Barack Obama has.

Now, we all know that Barack Obama is not nearly as glib without his teleprompter. But he is the master of reading from a teleprompter and still making his speech seem confident, relaxed and, above all, conversational.

That’s what makes him so charming and convincing to people who, for one reason or another, are blissfully unaware that what he’s saying rarely contains a lick of truth.

The most effective public speakers come across as if they’re intimately familiar with their material and could deliver it in their sleep; Sen. Ernst, not so much. It not only sounded like a “first take”, she tried too hard to keep smiling and upbeat, even though the true “state of our union” under the Obama regime is hardly anything to smile about. All in all, she came across, to me, sounding patronizing, as if she were addressing an assembly of schoolchildren.

If I had been her speechwriter, I would have completely dispensed with the speech she gave, no matter how well written it may have been.

And instead of having her speak for ten minutes, I would have had her speak for about ten seconds. And I would have had her speak only nine words.

I would have had her say precisely what Joe Pesci said to the jury in response to the prosecutor’s opening statement in this scene from “My Cousin Vinny”:

Thank you very much.