Never mind shouting at a President mid-speech (I know, but never mind it), what Wilson was accusing him of lying about...wasn't a lie. How perfectly republican. Here's my favorites so far of the responses from his colleagues :
House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, said the remark was the latest in a long line of political attacks by Wilson.
“Joe Wilson took our state's reputation to a new low. I thought [Gov.] Mark Sanford had taken it as low as it could go, but this is beyond the pale," Clyburn said.
That's true...this year, South Carolina seems to be going for pride of place as the new Te...ah, y'know.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, predicted that Wilson’s outburst would have consequences.
"The person who said it will pay a price,” Durbin said. “I think the average American thinks that the president and the office deserve respect, and that was a disrespectful comment. They'll pay a price in the court of public opinion."
You get the feeling Wilson is going to find out that nobody wants to play with him at recess anymore?
Overall, I thought it a fine, powerful speech--much better than I feared if maybe not quite as good as I hoped. But then, what I hoped for was the rhetorical equivalent of ripping up a tree and knocking some bodies down with it...and that letter from Kennedy came pretty close.
And my god. He did it. He called lies, lies. I've been waiting years for a powerful Democrat to use that word instead of something pathetically weak like "disinformation."
I'd put it somewhere between a B+ and an A-. Why not a solid A? Well, for one thing, as Froomkin (who, like me, generally liked the speech), points out:
one very important thing was entirely missing from Obama's speech: Any explanation of what he's been up to in his backroom deals with health industry titans. This demonstrated a real lack of transparency, honesty, and courage on Obama's part...
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