(Rep. Joe Wilson, yelling "you lie!" at Pres. Obama during his speech to a joint session of Congress. 9/9/09)
I'm not sure what the most disturbing part of this story is, so, I'll lay out the problems as I see them and you can decide:
1)The simple rudeness of it all. If this guy is supposed to be a leader in our country, what hope can we really have for civil and productive discourse in our country? The disrespect shown here is shameful. This is not the way to disagree.
2)This Wilson fellow is now a folk hero in conservative circles. They've made this guy a poster-child for speaking the truth to power. They're even making t-shirts!! And this probably wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that...
3) WILSON IS DEAD WRONG ON THE FACTS!!! There is no grey area here. The administration has gone to great lengths to make sure this cannot be misinterpreted. It is as clear as day. The fact that we can elect people in this country who seem to be able to operate in some nebulous fact-free universe troubles me deeply.
The ironic thing is that, by shouting out a lie about the president lying, Wilson has forced hundreds of articles to be written about this. And all of them that choose to do any fact checking have to conclude the same thing: Wilson is wrong, Obama was right. Thereby spreading the president's message even further.
He's done Obama's work for him.
In fairness, Wilson apologized for his outburst. To me, he should be apologizing for his ignorance.
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