It’s no surprise that Barack Obama’s State of the Union was a snooze: The speech has long been a dull and pompous ritual. But no one was bored two days later when the president showed up to a House Republican confab in Baltimore for a lively, unscripted tussle with his opponents.

Inspired by that exchange, a diverse coalition of political luminaries set up demandquestiontime.com, a petition drive aimed at starting “a new American political tradition.” The group, which includes lefties David Corn and Katrina vanden Heuvel, and right-wingers Grover Norquist and Glenn Reynolds, wants the parliamentary practice of Prime Minister’s Questions — in which the chief executive is regularly grilled by his opponents — brought to the United States.

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