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Washington Turns on Obama Heckler Joe Wilson After Healthcare 'Liar' Gibe
In a rare moment of unity in the bitter American healthcare debate, both sides of the political spectrum have turned on a Republican congressman after his extraordinary heckle of President Obama during a keynote speech last night.
US President Barack Obama's high-stakes health care speech drew frequent eyerolls and scoffs from his Republican critics, but sharpest was a single shouted charge: "You lie" from Republican Joe Wilson of South Carolina (C) during a joint session of the US Congress in Washington, DC. (AFP/Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla) Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, breached Washington etiquette by calling Mr Obama a liar as he addressed the joint houses of Congress last night.
During an impassioned speech in support of his flagship health reform plan, Mr Obama insisted that there would be no provision for illegal immigrants to receive state-sponsored medical assistance.
Mr Wilson responded to the claim by shouting "You lie!". Two words that were greeted by groans and murmurs of disapproval from across the chamber. The President paused, looked in the direction of the outspoken congressman and said calmly "that's not true".
In the hours after the interruption, there was bipartisan condemnation of Mr Wilson. Before the embarrassed congressman had issued an apology, Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, said he could face formal sanctions for his remark.
John McCain, an Arizona Senator, led the Republican response by calling the behaviour "totally disrespectful". "There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologise for it immediately," said the former presidential candidate.
In the seconds after the outburst many Republicans froze, others swivelled their heads to look at the culprit ensconced on their side of the room.
Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, stared at Mr Wilson from her seat behind the President. Alongside her, Joe Biden, the Vice President, shook his head while Michelle Obama pursed her lips and shook her head from side to side.
Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, said: "Everybody was stunned. It was just something that nobody had ever witnessed before. We all felt embarrassed."
Within minutes, the congressman's website had crashed, and hundreds of people had sent him messages on Twitter criticising his behaviour as unprofessional.
A spokesman for Rob Miller, a Democrat who plans to stand against Mr Wilson at the midterm election, said he had raised thousands of unexpected dollars on his website.
Late last night, Mr Wilson issued a statement of apology. "This evening I let my emotions get the best of me," he said. "While I disagree with the President's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility."
A spokesman said that he then tried to call Mr Obama to apologise personally, but had to settle for a conversation with Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff.
79 Comments so far
Show AllAnother shining light from South Carolina. The state that keeps on giving.
Now all Wilson has to do is run for governor and have sex with a horse.
q
Stay classy, South Carolina!
Is there anybody in DC who doesn't lie ?
Is there anybody in DC who doesn't lie ?
The break in protocol was that when the president lies before a joint house of Congress the accepted response is a standing ovation and a bunch of hoo-ahing. So to have a member of congress call "a spade, a spade" (sorry, couldn't resist), it truly must have been shocking...look for an increase in Drone bombings to make everyone feel better about themselves, or maybe a "crime sweep" in the Ghetto to beat up some untouchables; gotta have a clear mind and high self-esteem to make all these tough decisions ya know.
Only the dog!
ARF!
IMHO Wilson can add coward to his resume. I tried to Email him this AM but his website was down. But being a very patient person, I'll keep checking it. The coward will eventually have to crawl out from the slimy rock he lives under.
It seems that this kind of churlish behavior always comes from the same region of Amerikkka. Abraham Lincoln really goofed. He should have let the South secede.
With apologies to the non-troglodyte Southerners out there, I want to thank Cavedweller for echoing my own thoughts. The South won the Civil War --- it just took them a hundred and forty years to consolidate their victory. I was ranting to my poor wife this morning that Lincoln should have let the Confederates secede, and then funded and armed their slaves for an uprising. At the very least, after the war ended the Confederate states should have been erased from the map (i.e., state suicide) and replaced with new states of the North's creation.
It always astonishes me to see rabidly patriotic conservatives support the flying of the traitorous Stars and Bars everywhere in the South.
They lost the military war, but ultimately won the political/ideological war. The South did not go through the generations of shaming that Germany and Japan went through for their atrocities. A few years into Reconstruction, bygones were more or less allowed to be bygones, and former elected officials who had basically committed treason and joined the Confederate government were allowed to sit in Congress again. The attitudes were never really changed, the South never experienced collective guilt, and never admitted they were in the wrong.
And so, you now have a member of Congress from the state which started the Civil War, screaming that the black president is lying to him.
At least the rest of Congress united in denouncing him. The same sure can't be said of the conservative media, many of which are embracing him.
Kevin Phillips in his books on American History postulates that the entire Southern cause was morphed into a church (the Southern Baptist Church) so they could meet and plan and preserve their southern culture under the guise of Chrisitanity. It was sort of like a post civil war Al Queda organization. Jim Crow laws and Southern solidarity against federal voting laws and rights for blacks was born there. It's bigot city. And yeah, there's a pack of bigots right here in the north too. Their concentrations are through lions clubs, rotary, shriners, hunting clubs, etc. Clubs are bigot heaven in the north.
At any rate, Nixon was well aware of this when he coined his Southern Strategy. The "God" talk of politicians is all bullshit. It's just code speech for "We are bigots too".
Rev. TM,
Yes, because the brilliant combination of violence and bureaucracy always improves things. Sorry but just how would "new states" created by the US have helped? If you're talking about just redrawing lines, so parts of Mississippi would be in Alabama tell me how that would have changed the minds of people living there. Or do you mean moving hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the area--carpetbagging on coke--a la China's Tibetan strategy or the US Plains Native American genocide? Or more like the Khmer Rouge's Year Zero, in which cities were emptied and people were driven into rural areas where millions starved to death, and people were executed for having soft hands or wearing eyeglasses (although certainly anti-intellectualism is no part of US politics or culture...Attention...sarcasm alert!)
You apparently know that many people in the south are still fixated on the Confederate flag; banning or reorganizing states from outside would have given them another grievance and another 13(+/-) fetishes to project their resentment and rage onto, compounding the problem. Are YOU being sarcastic or do you not understand even the most basic psychology?
Please forgive him. He thought he was at a town hall meeting on healthcare.
:-)
Wilson probably listens to Rush Limbaugh and/or watches Sean Hannity. Today they will probably be praising him.
"All governments lie."
---I.F. Stone
Shouting "Liar" in Congress is like shouting "whore" in a brothel
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Enough Already!
Mr. Obama, It's time for the gloves to come off. Republicans see bipartisanship as a sign of weakness. Time to use your bullypulpit and treat them the way Bush treated the Democrats.
Roll over them, crush them, act like they are not there. After all, it's what they deserve.
Rob Miller has gotten about $70,000 overnight from this, how cool is that?
What a fantastic way to make the point that the republicans are not playing with a full deck and have gone off the deep end. I bet Obama wishes he would have paid Wilson for his help. I sure hope Obama is playing rope a dope, because it seems to be working. The rest of the republicans can run for cover but they can not hide.
Is this sordid spectacle anything other than what was intended? Have these confederate zombies not been provoking EXACTLY this since they started throwing raw chub to the tea-backlashers? The Rethuglicans should have stood up en masse and shouted "LIAR!" so the world could see who they truly are rather than hide behind false outrage that their, uh, decorum was violated by one "excitable boy."
They are willing to destroy anything, everything that stands between them and their next usurpation of power. They are not the majority and they they do not believe in anything resembling democracy or the rule of law. They want surrender on their terms or civil war.
Want to see their vision of the future? Take a look at Baghdad.
Fascism is alive and well in South Carolina.
You must take into acount that joe wilson's South Carolina collage degree (if he has one)is equivalent to a high school degree in the North.
Oh, that's rich. I nearly pissed my pants laughing. thanks.
PS, you spelld collage rong.
Yeah, what is this knee-jerk dissing of all things Southern? There are many fine institutions of higher learning in the South, including UVA, UNC,Duke and Vanderbilt, just to name a few.And I can think of plenty of truly lousy high school systems in the North, and universities there which don't deserve the name.The fact that Wilson is a jerk, and happens to 'represent' a district in South Carolina, is just an unfortunate coincidence.
No, I think it actually IS a "collage" degree-- a crude sheepskin forgery assembled from scraps of stolen or discarded college diplomas.
Look closely at the engraving, and you'll notice that the "bell tower" on the seal is actually the Sombrero Tower at South of the Border.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Joe Wilson, Representative, South Carolina: an ill-mannered oaf, a boor, a graceless churl, a bigot,a fool, a pompous know-nothing, a dull-witted barbarian, a zany zealot, a Limbaugh lightweight, a right-wing republican!
Right on the money!
It would appear as if this particular member of the GOP caucus has fallen prey to the downside of repeatedly spouting the big lie -- he believes it.
Joe Wilson represents a disturbing percentage of Americans who have a deep hatred of Mexican immigrants. They fear the Mexicans are going to get a piece of the "American pie" while they do our "dirty" labor for little money. What about America's own stupidity in allowing American corporations to steal most of the American pie?
If the U.S. had been fair about "aiding" Mexico's much needed national economic development through economic justice, rather than America's one way benefits of NAFTA, they wouldn't be pushing our borders in such great numbers. U.S. Foreign Economic Development is only about exploiting other nations to enrich American corporations.
We have become such a selfish nation, always looking for scapegoates in others, while never seeing the timber in our own eyes.
Though it was out of order, I can't remember how many times I wished someone would have done the same during a Bush address.
"Emotion" got the better of him? I don't think so. I think it was his COMPLETE lack of class that got to him. It was his complete lack of humanity that got to him. It was his stupidity that got to him. Emotion had NOTHING to do with it.
May his opponent in the next election use this to his advantage all the way into the office.
And BTW, his "apology" is too little, too late. Back to the real world and the private sector for you!
An unspeakable transgression! Yes, in past SOTU's there have been "murmurings" (quiet boos) from one side or the other but Wilson's outburst - actually calling the Pesident a liar during an address (not a debate) to Congress and countless millions watching in the U.S. and around the world - is outrageous. He should be severely censured at the very least.
Resignation is in order.
I am exceptionally going to take Obama's side.
The likes of Joe Wilson are naturally also the ones who never tire of pontificating about Christian values, morality, proper behavior, respect and love for our great institutions (presumably Congress and its protocols is one such institution), and the depravity of liberals and the liberal society.
Do I need to mention that calling an item of a proposal for legislation a lie is an elementary category mistake? How can something that has not even been adopted yet and implemented be called a lie? It is merely being entertained at this stage of the process of legislation fashioning. It has as of yet neither truth-claiming force nor prescriptive force.
But hey, can you really expect an uneducated dirtbag such as Joe Wilson to make these fine distinctions?
I propose that members of Congress who cannot pass an elementary logic test and a semantics test be removed from their functions at once.
"I propose that members of Congress who cannot pass an elementary logic test and a semantics test be removed from their functions at once."
Wow! That would transform our government! To bad we can't apply it to voters too.
The voters would be fine if we applied it to the media.
PaiaGirl - You made me laugh out loud. True and funny!
Zmann - true true
The faux pas by Wilson is normal of the right wing lately i.e. death panel Palin ect, but it seem endemic to the South and from my perspective, many of them are closet racists who cannot admit that is their problem. Many cannot handle the thought of a black family in THEIR White House!
Don't be silly, there have always been Black families in the White House. They just can't stand them without feather dusters in their hands.
Actually, it's rather unfortunate that his comment wasn't made during the several other times during Obama's speech when he DID lie. His timing was just bad. We here call Obama on his lies all the time. It's really too bad that no Democrat had the balls to shout out Liar to Bush during the very many lies he told during his speeches.
Some truths from the ObamaFile website:
At the very beginning of his speech -- Obama definitely lied. He said, "I can stand here with confidence, and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink."
Well, let's look at that statement.
Back from the brink? Under Obama unemployment has soared to 9.7%. It was 7.6% when he took over. Unemployment is now in excess of 10% in 15 states and 3,766,000 jobs have been lost.
Back from the brink? The National Debt, in the first 230 years of the Republic, grew to $11.67 trillion. Under Obama, $9 trillion has been added to the national debt in six months.
Back from the brink? Under Obama, the Gross Domestic Product has dropped 6.5%.
Did Obama Lie? Yes -- again -- and these numbers are still growing.
Joe Wilson may have broken protocol, but he was correct in pointing out that the emperor had no clothes.
Joe Wilson was correct. Obama demonstrably lied. I didn't watch the speech, but in that video from HotAir blog, he definitely lied in the first 2 minutes of his speech. That one about illegals was certainly a whopper, and I suspect that these weren't the only lies in his excessively long diatribe.
Obama's life is a lie. His autobiography is a myth. This guy lies all the time. The funny thing, he's no good at it, but he doesn't have to be -- his allies in the media don't report his lies, cover up for him when he's caught, and attack anyone who has the courage to call him on his lies -- just watch what they're going do to Joe Wilson today and tomorrow -- they're going to pillory his *** -- for daring to tell the truth.
Reader "JH" just emailed me with these latest unemployment figures, and it's even worse than the charts, above, indicate.
Unemployment (according to statistics) is actually at 16.7% (not 9.7% like the statist wants you to believe) if you count:
• People who have lost their full time jobs, and are working part-time unable to find a full-time job.
• People who have been laid off for more than 6 months who are still unable to find a job.
• People who have just given up looking for work.
It's kind of like the 47 million figure for Americans without insurance. As soon as you start peeling back the lies from the onion, the truth begins to stink stronger.
A closing thought -- why is it OK for Obama to blatantly lie to the American People from the well of Congress, but it's a no-no for a member to call him on it -- that's just nuts!
--
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the
Please don't recite right-wing blog talking points here. They're dirty.
Fuckin'A zmann--They're all dirty. If you don't know me by now from my commentaries, then I'm very sorry for you.
Don't try to rewrite history. When Clinton left office the debt was about to be eliminated and GW Bush inherited what should have been a surplus. America went into a recession in the spring of 2001, not all Bush's fault but rather wall street - imagine somebody actually believing that AOL is more valuable than Time Warner CNN? During the next years, Bush expanded the debt with outrageous spending on his war of opportunity and encouraged a consumer economy financed on credit cards. It finally collapsed with the help of an inflated housing market. Something that even republicans had warned him about publicly but he was too busy being a "wartime president" to notice that his own policies had made the bad policies of the previous 30 years even worse. Bailing out the banks was a Bush plan and unfortunately, we the tax payer are the only "bank" big enough to do so. Most progressives, I think, would agree that the economic stimulus bill was filled with pork that congress and Obama have to accept responsibility for. BUT! Some form of stimulus was necessary as opposed to doing nothing like Hoover and the modern day republicans wanted to do. The hidden unemployed and under-employed are part of the Bush regime method of counting and most have been there since 2001, especially in minority neighborhoods. We do have some positive economic indicators for the first time. Trying to lay this mess on Obama just shows your ignorance.
The so-called Clinton Surplus was hogwash--Creative Accounting along Enron lines.
You've got to face it, the guy is correct about Obama being far less than truthful, as has been the "democrat stalworths" since Gore lost because of his own timidity.
There are some errors the guy makes. The BLS has several different indicators for unemployment, both of which I've cited and explained many times here at CD. U3 is currently about 9.6% while U6 is 16.8%, and neither are perfect measures. Myself and Shadowstats come up with a different figure that I've cited several times in the past few days, including twice today. What almost all people with half a brain agree upon is GDP is not a good indicator of an economy's wellness.
But the bottom line in this discussion is Obama's veracity. By almost every measure he fails, as almost every president has for far too many decades. At the moment Wilson spoke, he was wrong contextually. But overall, he was correct. Obama lies to the American People constantly, just as Bush and Cheney did. You folks need to get that through your thick skulls.
Are you being paid to re-post right wing blog points by the word? If so, your employers really wasted their money...as this audience is not in the least receptive.
Big effin deal. I wish more of these congressional get togethers would feature the same sort of shouting and name-calling that British parliamentary sessions have. The collegial veneer we endure is too much to bear sometimes. Obama IS a liar, but then again so is Joe Wilson. And Nancy Pelosi. And Joe Biden. Steny Hoyer? LIAR!! John Mccain? LIAR!! I love when pols attack each other because that's the only time they seem NOT to be lying.
As usual, you republicans have not got your facts straight.
Although British parliament can get rowdy, calling someone a liar is grounds for sanctioning them.
If you feel Obama lied, please quote the lies and back them up with excerpts from some draft healthcare legislation.
I'm betting you can't.