President caves in completely

[Drake Tungsten]

This has zero effect on anyone. Why are we talking about Douchebag Wilson, and Douchebag Kennedy, instead of focusing on our mother****ing imploding health care system?!

Because the poll numbers for the Democrats' healthcare reform plummet when the country actually focuses on the specifics of the reform effort. A two-minute hate against Joe Wilson and the Republicans might obscure the divide between pro-public option progressives and anti-public option Blue Dogs just long enough to pass something (anything!) on healthcare and prevent Obama's number one legislative goal from ending up as a total failure.

[Asher]

Latest poll results:

Obama Job Approval on Health Care
Sept. 10 poll: 52% Approve, 38% Disapprove

[rah]

Not what i would call overwhelming

[Drake Tungsten]

Thanks for the backup, Asher.

That's a 12-point improvement from last week. The Dems need to ram healthcare reform through now before the numbers slide again and the Blue Dogs get skittish. Demagoguery on Wilson buys them a little more time.

[Asher]

Not what i would call overwhelming

A majority is always overwhelming.

[rah]

I figure the margin of error on this one is over 2% so you're not even sure if it's over 50%.

With his popularity figures dropping like a rock, he'd better get something passes soon or his window of opportunity will be slammed shut. And rushing will only screw it up as far as I'm concerned.

[Kidlicious]

Wilson didn't do anything wrong. This country would be a whole lot better if more people would call out politicians when they're lying.

Yeah, except it came from another lying bastard politician.

[RGBVideo]

How can you loyalists respect this man? Er, let me rephrase that, how can you believe anything that his speech writer writes for this man and puts on the teleprompter? You would have been better off voting for the teleprompter, at least then there wouldn't be this constant racial tension.

see, if you weren't an obvious DL, you'd have other interests than obscure political debates an hyper-partisanship

[chequita guevara]

Hmm, he already apologized and some republican leaders already have voiced their thoughts that it was wrong. What more do you want? Or do you think only dems like kennedy deserve a second chance. At least Wilson wasn't complicit in someone's death.

Accidents aren't usually accompanied by the term, complicit. That's usually reserved for an intentional act. Was Kennedy a douche for not contacting the police as soon as he could? Yes. Would it have made one bit of difference in saving the woman's life? No.

There's a lot to criticize Kennedy for, but that's not really one of them.

[rah]

Accidents aren't usually accompanied by the term, complicit. That's usually reserved for an intentional act. Was Kennedy a douche for not contacting the police as soon as he could? Yes. Would it have made one bit of difference in saving the woman's life? No.

There's a lot to criticize Kennedy for, but that's not really one of them.

Actually there are some people that have reviewed the evidence and said that if he acted sooner she might have been saved. You should really read the accounts from his aides to see just how big a douche he was. A lot of what he did was intentional.

[Zkribbler]

Drake, what part of Section 246 don't you understand?

SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED
ALIENS.
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments
for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are
not lawfully present in the United States.

What provision in the bill do you (and Congressman Wilson) claim permits payments on behalf of illegal immigrants?


What Republicans are using here is a McCarthy tactic called "The Big Lie." If you repeat something over and over and over again, at the top of your lungs, people will start to believe it. That's what Wilson is doing here--screaming "lie" at the top of his voice when really he is the one that is lying.

Yes, Wilson did "apologize." He didn't admit he was wrong. He didn't say he was sorry. He just said his actions were "inappropriate." It's a non-apology apology.

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake, what part of Section 246 don't you understand?

What part of the CRS report don't you understand? CRS is the official research arm of Congress and knows a hell of a lot more about legislation under consideration than you do.

Yes, Wilson did "apologize." He didn't admit he was wrong. He didn't say he was sorry. ... It's a non-apology apology.

No need to apologize when you've done nothing wrong.

[SlowwHand]

I don't know that I would call it "proper", but we do fight for freedom of speech and independent thinking, after all.

[Drake Tungsten]

In Praise of Joe Wilson

In Britain, boorish behavior like Rep. Joe Wilson’s is a cherished part of the political culture. Alex Massie on why American politicians are a bunch of wimps.

Far and away the most deplorable element of what we must now, presumably, call the Joe Wilson Affair is the fact that Rep. Wilson (R-SC) has felt the need to apologize for calling the president of the United States a liar during his speech on Wednesday night.

The second most deplorable aspect of this midget-size tempest was President Obama’s acceptance of Wilson’s apology. “We all make mistakes,” Obama said, adding that the congressman “apologized quickly and without equivocation. I am appreciative of that.”

Could anything be prissier than that?

The factual merits of Wilson’s cry of “You lie!” need not detain us, if only because it is an obvious truth that, sooner or later, all presidents speak less than the whole truth. Here was an opportunity for Obama to endorse the eternal value of the First Amendment; instead, he emphasized the idea that criticizing the president of the United States is, in the dread terms favored by puritans, killjoys, and charlatans everywhere, “inappropriate.”

Not that Obama was alone in considering this most minor rebellion a threat to the sweet decorum of the republic. The maiden aunts staffing The Associated Press’ Washington bureau clucked: “The nastiness of August reached from the nation’s town halls into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as President Barack Obama tried to move his health-care plan forward.” If a two-word heckle passes the AP’s “Nastiness Threshold,” one wonders how the wire service would describe something truly monstrous.

Trivial though it may seem, this brouhaha highlights a great flaw in the American system: You elect a monarch. In olden days and on the old continent, criticizing the monarch might limit your life chances. So too, alas, in the American capital today, as the arbiters of acceptable Washington indecency—that is, the Davids Broder and Gergen—decry your shortage of civility and surfeit of vulgarity.

The convention that Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of the President in His Presence elides the great difference known to every Briton—that between insulting the head of state and insulting the mere head of the executive branch of government.

Insulting Queen Elizabeth is one thing; insulting Gordon Brown is practically an obligation. Disrespecting the former is an act of treason; disrespecting the latter and his office, a necessity: Every Wednesday, Brown must endure Prime Minister’s Questions, during which his enemies in Parliament grill him. Prime Minister’s Questions may not be the be all and end all, but it affords an opportunity for “telling truth to power” that does not exist in the regal American system.

America’s problem is that it has combined the head of state and the head of the executive branch into a single office, and it can no longer distinguish between the two roles. Obama’s health-care address was not given in his role as head of state. It was, rather, a political speech made by—pinch yourselves—a mere politician seeking to advance his own political agenda.

As such, there seems no compelling reason for supposing that it be listened to in respectful, forelock-tugging silence. Silly Joe Wilson for forgetting that.

For all that the office of the presidency has been glorified to be over these past 10 decades, it remains the case that no president is infallible, and nor should he presume that he only preaches to a flock of obedient true believers.

It is sometimes said that American politics would be well served by adopting some aspects of the more confrontational British style of debating. There’s something to be said for this, and not only because it would provide entertainment for Beltway journalists. As it is, the president may preach but the congregation is supposed to remain silent, even if the gospel is taken in vain. And if it is, then it’s terribly rude to say so.

More important, it might demand that the president lift his game. I am reminded of the story of the 18th-century radical John Wilkes, who was once heckled, “Vote for you? I’d sooner vote for the Devil,” to which he replied, “And what if your friend is not standing?”

Which, in its own way, is rather what President Obama should have said to Rep. Wilson.

Bravo, however, to Mr. Wilson for doing what he could to remind us all that the president is just a man.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-10/in-praise-of-hecklers/full/

[SlowwHand]

So, there are others that agree? Well, that's cool. If people can burn flags, why can this guy not show emotion? Do we want a room full of R2D2's? I suppose that's what we've had, for this to be such a taboo thing to do.