Has the Tea Party, Under a New Name, Found Its Leader?
Someone told me that one line of defense trotted out for South Carolina Republican congressman Joe Wilson's ill-bred, uncouth and untrue shout of ''You lie!'' at President Obama is that that sort of thing is done all the time in Britain's House of Commons.
Would Rep. Wilson, the small-y yahoo (the original meaning, from Jonathan Swift's ''Gulliver's Travels''), indeed have fit right in in that ''Mother of Parliaments,'' where the cut and thrust of debate extends to a lot of raised voices?
Yes and no. Shouting and catcalls are part of the culture in the Commons, and an entertaining sight it can be, too. But rules that go back more than a century-and-a-half enjoin members from making accusations about lying or being drunk. Winston Churchill, a tippler of note and an orator of the first water who may never have been called out under the ban on the latter, himself tiptoed around the former by referring to an opponent's ''terminological inexactitude.''
Rep. Wilson's rudeness was not only perhaps a disappointment to his mother and a violation of Section 370 of House rules, but saying that President Obama was lying about illegal immigrants and health care was factually insupportable, as many political fact-checking and news organizations scrambled to find out before the gasps in the House chamber had subsided. (Not that those people who make it a point of honor of being hostile to fact will ever let that deter them.)
So, would it be fine to behave like the British when it comes to an outburst in Congress, but not when it comes to British health care programs? Heck, give me a public option, and I'd let Congress holler its collective heads off.
Thousands are assembling in Washington, D.C. as tax-protesting Tea Partiers (I sure hope they didn't drive on any of those socialist/communist/fascist taxpayer-funded roads to get there). Rep. Wilson has positioned himself to become the popular choice for standard bearer of a recrudescence of an old American political movement. Let's call it for what it is: the Neo-Know Nothings.
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Wake up America!
The ones I've heard using the House of Commons to justify Joe Wilson's execrable behaviour have mostly been liberals, who would have liked to hear someone, anyone, call out George Bush once or twice (maybe when he used that disproved thing about Saddam buying yellowcake in Africa). There was evidence out there to prove Bush lied, again and again, and who in Congress said a word?
As defenses go though, it's always been weak sauce. Who seriously thinks Joe Wilson, or any of his tea-party buddies, really cares how they do it in the UK? Hell, that's where they have that goddam socialized medicine, ain't it?
The greatest thing is this:
"you lie" = 2 words, raised voice
sound rebuttal with factual data and historical context, maybe some rhetoric regarding any subject you so desire = 500 words - (italics) infinity (/italics)
So based on the above, he won by that alone. There is always a regretfully large swath of the population who will support the short, ribald, response over the long, intellectual and factually based on anytime. Because the, let's be honest, simpleton believes that if he put you in a dither with 2 words, you should refute him in no less than 4.
Excellently phrased, and very true as well.
It's heartbreaking to me to see how ugly this collective group of fruitcakes has become, and how much the media glorifies their every move. The most historical election that this country has had in it's history, and a fine decent man in the office of the presidency, and his beautiful wife and family, his unprecedented efforts at reaching across the aisle, and these people don't even recognize how ugly they have become in contrast. If anything is truly a shame and a reason for crying out about our country being hijacked, it is what these people have inflicted upon the rest of the nation.
it doesn't specifically exclude aliens from another planet, such as Repuburanus so wilson was right....j
Considering the fact that Joe Wilson is a member of "Sons of Confederate Veterans", a group which has harbored white supremacists wanted by the law, I'd say that he is the perfect leader of the birther/de
Neo Know Nothings indeed. Also the Neo No! Nothing! 's
Joe Wilson is just the new nothing of the week. Some become part of the regular menu (the eejit Palin) and some phase out quickly ( the equally eejit Joe the Plumber). I don't know how long his shelf life is. He may be a leader. It depends on how successful his eejitness is.
But he lied that the president lied.
Health Care Bill To Cover Undocumented Immigrants? False.
12,961 Comments
or you could check out the Congressional Research Services analysis on this....th
What is up with South Carolina? I'm sure there's lots of good people who live there, but man, your elected officials are sub-human!
more like not human
i just bought a vacation home there.....
So. Carolina will soon turn blue-- watch.
we fought a war and gained Independence from Great Britian more than 235 years ago, in part to get away from the mores of the British so what may be considered appropriate decorum for the Brithsh House of Commons is rather moot --- however the republicans are political hypocrites and will justify all of their wacked out immature behavior on whatever excuse they can come up with, just like a bunch of six year olds will do when caught doing bad deeds
Oh Goody, now Joe Wilson is the new Joe the Plumber. Geez between Sanford, DeMint, Graham and now Wilson, it is getting harder and harder to drive out of state with these S.C. plates. Will have to smear mud on them first I guess.
These are the people who are hiding their money in off-shore banks, not paying their fair share of taxes, expecting the middle class to carry their load, got rich on the backs of American workers and are shipping American Jobs overseas and who don't give a flying F@ck about anything but getting more for themselves.
Five Star post.
I too think debate at this level should be more robust. All the manners are a little much. The house of commons has a fine tradition of insult and a good dose of derision. Democratic political debate is above all about the resolution of conflicts withing a prescribed arena that allows for an ultimately peaceful resolution; where the winner should take all, there is no reason that it should not be heated, and occasionally insulting. At the end of the day though, your argument better be right. I don't think Mr. Wilson has a leg to stand on.
In the UK, those same figures insulting each other on the floor of the house are often to be found later knocking back a few wets in the bar.
I was informed by a scholar of American politics there was a time people turned up to debates with firearms. It may have been that you had to enact some strict codes of behavior to stop that famous American method of settling a dispute, a shoot out!?
Civility towards other points of view begins with the president. This President just used the (previously) rare joint address of congress to call the loyal opposition any number of names.
George Bush was a bad President, but he did have class compared to the Chicago style.
You are free to scream at the President, but you aren't free to disgrace yourself doing it on Capitol Hill while the President is addressing Congress and the nation.
Decorum, in case you forgot in your rush to criticize the President of the United States, is a family value.
Sorry, but the usual republican "it's a wash" strategy doesn't work on this one; no president in my lifetime has been disrespected in this way -not even Nixon, and whose going to defend him?
President Obama called out the purveyors of the the lies and myths about healthcare reform for what they are. I heard a conservative blowhard assert that illegals would be covered under healthcare reform even has the that specifically stated that illegal aliens would receive healthcare coverage was read to him. The GOP is the party of willfull ignorance.
I'm not aware that President Obama, with exactly one joint address to Congress, has transformed the frequency of joint addresses from "rare" to "commonpla
He called the loyal opposition names?
Really. What "names"? Name one!
I don't buy your argument, but even if I did, I think you undercut it with your last comment, the one about "the Chicago style".
Which of the Republicans who were so rude the night of Obama's speech, is from Chicago exactly? It's not Joe Wilson, it's been amply established that he's from South Carolina. Would it be the representative who got up and walked out in the middle? The ones holding the protest signs? The ones Blackberrying?
How exactly, is Chicago responsible for this degrading of civility?
I know there are many out there who are really upset with the tone of our political discussions these days. But I am not one of them. Frankly, after my experiences during the late 1960s and early 1970s when, for me, there appeared to be no such thing as civil political discussion, I had begun to worry over the disappearance of such traits. I can now take a deep breath and offer a sigh of relief. Incivility is back in form, and don't you just love it?
No. They're armed.
They're armed, irrational, saved and ignorant. That's a volatile cocktail.
Well, so am I. Although I agree that debate shouldn't degenerate into shootout.
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