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Congressman Joe "You Lie" Wilson
You'd have thought that a California Assemblyman being caught on tape bragging about spanking and sexing not one but two lobbyists would have been the most embarrassing GOP gaffe of the day.
You would be wrong. Because South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson did him one better when he shouted "You Lie." At the President. During a nationally televised live speech. Before a joint session of Congress. The look of genuine horror that passes over Pelosi's face pretty much says it all. A new low.
Folks in the Twittersphere are tageting Wilson (@congjoewilson ) with calls and petitions. Senator John McCain told Larry King Wilson should apologize immediately. And this conservative thinks Wilson should be censured, at least.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays outside of the punditocracy. Have our politics gotten so nasty that calling the president a liar before congress is just so much small beer? Or is this a Rick Lazio moment (that is: able to upset center-right voters so much that they throw their weight behind the other guy. Or in Lazio's case, gal.)
We'll see. Meanwhile, Dana Goldstein of the American Prospect tweeted that while she finds Joe Wilson "unhinged," she's ok with him shouting out, if it means that Congress will start acting more like the UK's rowdy Parliament, something that, wait for it, John McCain advocates! (h/t NPR's David Folkenflick).
I love a good Parliamentary tussle, but to my mind the difference between that and Wilson's eruption is a world of wit, and occasional wisdom, away. Furthermore, Slate's June Thomas notes that you can't use the L-word (different one) at PMQ (prime minister questions?). "If you do, speaker sternly asks the member to withdraw. Some euphemisms for lying OK."
Fabling? Canarding?
Update: Wilson issued an apology. Also, he called Rahm Emanuel to personally apologize. Safe to say he got an earful.
Update II: Focus groups of armed with those dial things show a strong backlash against GOP tactics during speech, especially Wilson's outburst. So you can be sure he's getting an earful from the Rahm of the right, too.
Update III: Via Gawker's fun Wilson wrap-up (turns out his real name is Addison), folks have used ActBlue to give Wilson's opponent @ $40K and counting...Holy [deleted], that's jumped to almost $80 K in under an hour...By morning it was @$140K. Now $200K+. Safe to say rate of about $10K an hour...
Update VI: Via @junethomas, more terms you can't hurl in Parliment: "The specific terms to which the Speaker has objected over the years include blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, rat, stoolpigeon, swine, and traitor."
Update V: joewilsonisyourpreexistingcondition.com (keep refreshing)
Clara Jeffery is Co-editor of Mother Jones. You can read more of her stories here and follow her on Twitter here. And don't miss what David Corn, Kevin Drum, and Jim Ridgeway have to say about Obama's speech.
Disgrace to Congress
Joe Wilson is a disgrace to Congress. He is unprofessional and hot headed. I can't believe that he represents South Carolina.
Joe Wilson
You can't believe he represents South Carolina? With a governor like Sanford? What state would you believe he could represent?
It's not all that surprising
tagged as:- result
It's not all that surprising that he represents South Carolina. It is South Carolina, after all.
That's not cool. Pretty
That's not cool. Pretty small minded comment.
SC = First state to secede
SC = First state to secede in 1861...maybe Wilson's outburst is a harbinger. Not really a "small minded comment" at all. Considering the other BS the rightwing has been flinging for the past 30 odd years.
Have YOU looked around. You
Have YOU looked around. You have elected officials not paying taxes (rangel) having childen with mistress while wife copes with cancer (edwards) a president whose friends are the likes of weatherman underground and communists. Yea you're right joe's comment, albeit truthful is bad.
Congressman Wilson is the
Congressman Wilson is the only one who had nerve enough to say what the majority of Americans are feeling. The President was telling a lie. Congressman Wilson is our hero. It is time for the Democrats to get back some of what they gave to President Bush.
Joe Wilson
Congressman Wilson is proving how ignorant, angry, racist, and irrational is the far right. He and his ilk have hijacked the Republican Party, and no real Republicans have been so marginalized that none can participate in a meaningful and useful dialogue with their Democratic counterparts. This is very bad for our nation, but if it must be, then so be it, and let what was once the Grand Old Party wither and die, and let these angry white minorities from slave states wither with their Party. The truth is that the radicals have nothing to offer, so they offer nothing.
Annonymous who posted that
Annonymous who posted that radicals have nothing to contribute. You are right so please practice that and write to the President and have him STOP with the likes of william ayers. Van Jones. Let's see the fcc guy too. I cannot remember all their names.
Exaggeration and opinion framed as fact...
You don't know what a "majority" of Americans are feeling or thinking. Even the professional pollsters don't really know right now because there is so much misinformation in the system. I was among the real majority of Americans who voted for President Obama. That is a matter of record, it's a fact. The majority of Americans don't think what Rush Limbaugh (the Entertainer) says about an issue is the last word on the subject. And let me also mention that if Rush ever gets fired from his poorly produced and dirt-cheap radio show he's going to have a heck of a time getting health coverage, since he has a well known pre-existing condition - drug addiction.
And, while we're on the subject, let's have Mr. Wilson branded a "traitor," since that's exactly the kind of epithet the Democrats suffered at the hands of the Bush administration when they dared to challenge the war in Iraq. Fair is fair, right?
Barack Obama shouldn't lie
Barack Obama shouldn't lie if he doesn't want to be called a liar. He is an embarassment to the office of the President. Joe's outburst was the most truthful statement made in that room in years. Cudos.
Explain how exactly what he
Explain how exactly what he said was a "lie." Please. Go ahead...
And, by the way, the word is "kudos." If you're going to make a comment, you might want to make sure the spelling and grammar are correct.
Lol. So your use of quotes
Lol. So your use of quotes is correct? Afraid not, quotes inside the period. Oh yea and the lie, campaining with the promise of healthcare for everyone. Now we are told not everyone.
Actually, quotes go outside
Actually, quotes go outside all other punctuation---periods, question marks, even semi-colons.
But I'm not surprised you didn't know that.
my mistake
Really? My error see what a J.D. Will get you now days!
Not your fault.
They stopped teaching people in the late seventies or early eighties.
I didn't get the education my parents got either. Education makes you difficult and onery and programming makes you compliant and passive.
Which kind of slave would you prefer if you were the President?
"I accept your apology Mr. Wilson."
Something Stinks!
Well mentioning the 70's
Well mentioning the 70's does conjour up some flashbacks. Lol. Nuffsaid.
I too forgive you Joe.
Since school is mentioned. Let's see if those who castigate soldiers who did nothing more than what amounted to a serority 'hazing' and called it 'torture' can forgive.
English Lessons
Now that we have all had our fill with English and strayed off topic. I believe that the lie aspect has been brought out (campaign promise). May we stay on topic
Wilson using Minbari morality?
You're right Obama shouldn't lie. Wilson was calling a spade a spade! What's wrong with that. My problem is: where was Joe Wilson when Bush was telling whoppers to get his two wars in the Middle East. Where was Joe Wilson when GW invented the Islamofascist epithet and used false associations to tar thousands of innocent kidnapped Muslims who were held without any legal recourse for years on end. Where was Joe Wilson when Obama denounced Bush's detention policy - while voting for all of Bush's abuses and continuing them even to this day. Obama - like Bush - is no friend to the rule of law. Obama has yet to rescind any of Bush's abusive policies. Talk about dishonesty! But Wilson chose only to denounce relatively smaller lies on policy abuses not supported by the GOP.
The Minbari were an elder race that were incapable of killing, lying, deceit and treachery - except when it fit into their warped concepts of honor and religious fervor. They roundly condemned humans and lorded over them exuding moral contempt at our petty nature - except when it came to their much greater atrocities and immorality. Reminds me of Rush Limbaugh.
May God's will be done on earth and let it begin - and end - with myself. If it happens any other way it's not God's will.
finally
Finally a conversative with some fire in his gut. It's about time we have someone brave enough to call out the lies being pushed down our throat.
Obama is a liar and thank
Obama is a liar and thank goodness Congressman Wilson has the cajones to call him out. It was the perfect time and venue.
To heck with decorum. Obama wouldn't know decorum if it hit him in the face. He is a marxist pig that should be run out of the country. I will be DANCING in the streets when he is eliminated from office in 2012. Oh and he will be, by a landslide.
Birds of Feather Flock Down the Drain, G-d Willing
Whitetrash Addison Graves (Joe) Wilson, Sr. is just one more Vietnam law school draft-dodger who plays dress up in a Reserve JAG Officer's uniform while laying in bed with the fascist traitors who killed John and Martin to send us to die for the pope in Vietnam; cheated a closet-queen draft-dodger into the White House; and, committed 9/11.
Made elect by the American People, Barack Obama is anointed of G-d, by "Annuit Coeptis."
Jeffersonian Exegesis http://theamericanfundament.blogspot.com
Yes, and trash keeps
tagged as:- result
Yes, and trash keeps breeding more trash.
Joe Wilson is a brave hero.
Joe Wilson deserves a hearty congrats for sticking his neck out and not listening quietly like a zombie or a child too afraid to speak. Mr. Wilson wasn't heckling, he was expressing his outrage, and that of the people, at being blatantly lied to about an issue of enormous magnitude. It's about time someone got impassioned to stand up for what the majority of the country now feels, which is serious distrust of the president's intentions and agenda - just look at the polls my friends. Mr. Obama is not the person many of us thought we voted for. The honeymoon is more than over - the marriage is on the rocks, and in a very serious way.
...if he was so courageous
...if he was so courageous why did he apologize in about 20 seconds?
Maybe he remembered Senator Paul Wellstone.
I expect that Joe Wilson will be avoiding air travel for awhile.
If Cheney could have his own team of assassins, what about Joe "Pit Bull" Biden?
While Congress may seem to be respectable, keep in mind that it is ORGANIZED CRIME.
Look at Blagojevich. He should have given that juicy plum to Obama and look what happened. How many politicians have been indicted? Come on. They are not boy scouts.
Something Stinks!
Joe (thug) Wilson
Just because you don't believe anyone but Rush Limbaugh, Shawn Hannity, Bill O'Reily , and Rupert Murdock's right wingnut corporate propaganda network (Fox) etc. doesn't make every one else the liars. You probably believed Dumbya and Dick when they told you Saddam was conspiring with Al Quaida and that he had weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear program. You probably still believe it. If you have real proof that Obama is lying , where is it? In some corporate rag you've been reading? If I had nothing else to go on, and two people are calling each other liars, and one represented the corporate state (most Republicans) who have a lot to lose if real health care reform does happen, (specifically, the pharmaceutical companys, hospitals, and insurance companys,) for they wouldn't be able to rip the american public off as easily as they have and actually have to earn their living , and another person who isn't a corporate whore, it would be a safer bet to believe the latter. The Republican party is a farce and is about as conservative as Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin were in reality. And that makes them much bigger liars than the Dems. The problem with this country has been in the last 30 yrs. when the Republicans under Saint Reagan convinced the working class and the poor for the first time to vote for them and that they were for all of us. Boy that trickle down economics sure worked good didn't it? Today the average worker in this country makes in real wages (adjusted for there watered down inflation figures) still only what he did in 1968 thanks to the republicans union busting and anti labor legislation. The money grubbing corporate gods are laughing at you all the way to the bank. That is, if it wasn't one of those that the republicans let police themselves with deregulation, and whose pathological greed caused them to make stupid catasrophic risks and also allowed them to get so big that allowing them to fail would cause a global meltdown. So they got even more of yours and my money when we had to bail them out. Another Reaganism success story. Oh yea the republicans are better for lower taxes right? Only if you are in the top 1%. The trillion dollar tax cuts that Dumbya gave to the wealthy and the trillions in corporate welfare that he gave to defense contractors (Halliburton, Blackwater, and 150 more including the oil companies in his war for oil (the real reason for Iraq), which by the way, were no bid contracts that ripped us off of billions in work that was never done, were just a few of the big ticket expenses that tripled our national debt. Guess who will be paying for that for the rest of their lives with interest? Not there corporate or wealthy constituency, but you and your kids and your kids kids, on their $15 /hr wages. In fact almost all of todays national debt other than that left over yet from WWII were added by Republican administrations. Obama had to add some to bail out our Republican run economy and to revamp health care and our crumbling infrastucture, but it will save us much more in the long term, (something the near sighted corporate god, rip them off and run party never would do. The difference in income taxes between democrat and republican administrations in the short term is almost non existent. Less than 1%. And if you ask me what I would rather have, about a $400 tax break per year along with stagnant or even reversed real wages, or pay the $400 more per year and have wages that more or less kept up with our economy as they did in the 50s and 60s when the Democrats dominated, and the real average wage in this country would be more than 2 times what it is now, it is a real no brainer, which is what working class people who vote Republican are.
My dear anonymous,
Sure FOX sucks. Please explain why CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC are any different? They all front for war, fascism and national stupidity.
Something Stinks!
That's right Tax cuts given
That's right Tax cuts given to who? Maybe
get more
Democrats to PAY THEIR taxes. Oh yea president Obama may have had some of his cabinet he wanted.
What Joe Wilson deserves?
What Joe Wilson deserves is a public flogging...on the mall...at high noon. It's become apparent that Republicans have indeed proudly become uncivil, bellicose, prevaricating yahoos. I suppose that Joe Wilson thought he was actually complimenting President Obama, and that his real insult was his apology.
Do you honestly think being
Do you honestly think being endorsed by hamas that mr obama is a friend of Jews? As a new follower messianic Jew I ask that you please look at this man Obama,
The Horror, the Horror, the Horror
"The look of genuine horor that passes over Pelosi's face pretty much says it all. "
I think you mean "Horror" - then again, if you think Ms. Skeletor has a pretty face you may have some chemical imbalance or underlying psychiatric or cognitive dysfunction.
Maybe the Nancy Reagan eyes have strange hypnotic powers to which I am unaffected.
It is about time someone called a President a LIAR. I think it is a job requirement. I am certain that all the way back to Reagan they were all liars and Jimmy Carter also was not exactly a fountain of truth and virtue either.
"How do you tell when a Politician is Lying? Their lips move."
So that is a scandal? To suggest that a politician lies?
What is this, NAZI effing GERMANY?
Hasn't the media trolls had enough of sucking up to Presidents yet?
The public has.
We do not BELIEVE.
Take a whiff.
I smell two wars, two more being prepared, graft, corruption and corporate ownership of the government and the MSM toadies running fantasies of "right" and "left" which only means what the MSM says they do.
Pay no attention to the FASCIS on the RIGHT and LEFT side of the President.
Talk about your BLATANT symbolism.
The new FASCISTE is the same as the old FASCISTE.
Enjoy the WARS and forget about health care.
Something Stinks!
fucking loser!
fucking loser!
My dear Anonymous
Are you addressing me or the entire NATION?
Take a look. Take a whiff.
Is there ANYTHING this country has left to be proud of?
Something Stinks!
Huh? What are you ranting
tagged as:- result
Huh? What are you ranting about exactly?
My dear Anonymous,
They have no intention of giving us a decent health care package. They serve the corporations. This bill would benefit the industry and not the public. Meanwhile the wars go on and more are planned.
What do you think is JOB ONE? War or the people of the United States? Trillions for war. Trillions for the bailouts. Healthcare? Who can afford that?
It isn't a rant. I am awake. Wake up.
Why do you trust anything a politician says?
Why do you believe in people who honor torture, murder and rape.
What? You don't get that? Are Bush and Cheney in prison? No, but Gitmo is still open and there are far worse places than that.
When did Fascism and Nazism become fashionable?
Wedding parties and funerals are fair game for HellFire Missiles.
Burning human flesh paid for with your taxes.
Something Stinks!
Speaking of Nazis, someone should have said "You Lie" to Hitler.
Dear Something Stinks,
If you're going to envoke Nazis, please consider how many of us hope that at least one person had said "You Lie" the way Joe Wilson did tonight to Adolf H. - if you're going to go there - something stinks.
Alex
Lots of people did.
The MSM didn't give them much coverage, as today.
Not much changes.
The names and labels change, but the game is essentially the same as it ever was.
Something Stinks!
I think...
what Something Stinks is trying to say (or maybe not) is summarized nicely be George Orwell in the following quote:
"The party is not concerned with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, providing that the hierarchical structure always remains the same." - George Orwell
I love you Joe
I love you Joe
Good job
He spoke the truth and what many Americans feel. I'm glad he said it.
Regardless of how many
tagged as:- result
Regardless of how many americans feel this way, what he did was completely wrong and disrespectful. But, considering that the majority of Republicans - including those in office - are ill-mannered and ignorant Republicans, it's not all that surprising.
To: Regardless of how many
tagged as:- solution
certainly, I can agree that what he did was disrespectful, as I agree that I have not, to this day, found a politician that is truly genuine and can be trusted. However, your snide comment generalizing republicans is just as disrespectful and 'ill-mannered' as the very people you point a finger at...you sound extremely close-minded, although there are things you may not agree with, nor see the logic in, there are just as many that feel that way about your own viewpoints.
Civility, please
Guys, I know this is likely a lost cause but can we please keep a measure of civility in these comments? There's room for debate about health care, and even Congressman Wilson's outburst, without calling each other names.
Clara Jeffery
Editor
Mother Jones
Oh and liers and cheaters
Oh and liers and cheaters like charlie rangel are honorable. Please
alan keys is african american and republlican. You are a Racist
Yes Alan Keys is african american republican YOU RACIST.
Joe Wilson is an asshole and
Joe Wilson is an asshole and so are you!
Wow. Brilliant reply.
Wow. Brilliant reply. And you have the audicity to criticize Joe. Wow
Wilson should go.
South Carolina should be ashamed for voting this man into office. Supposedly Wilson called to apoligize saying that he didn't agree with Obama's statement about healthcare for illegal aliens. I guess he disagreed with the truth. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
It's not the calling the
It's not the calling the president a liar that's wrong. It's the being wrong about his being a liar that's wrong. If the president were actually lying then I probably wouldn't have a problem with someone pointing that out in the middle of the speech, but the plain fact is that the president was telling the truth. Wilson is the one lying.