A pimple on the ass of progress. That's what a White House senior advisor called Joe Wilson.
My father used to call me a pimple on the ass progress. But I was 10-years-old and running around at recess with a bunch of kids inappropriately calling other kids fags and retards.
Wilson was probably one of those kids and apparently hasn't grown out of it as he's still prone to uncontrollable childlike outbursts. So really the comment by the staffer was pretty appropriate.
Another thing my father used to say when those same kids called me names or just made stuff up was, "Just ignore them Richard."
When Joe Wilson yelled, "You lie," in the middle of a speech on health care to a joint session of Congress, Obama ignored him. The rest of the world, unfortunately, didn't. It was apparently the most important part of the evening. At least the most sensational part of the evening. Never mind the rest of the antics, like Shimkus walking out of the speech, or other members of the GOP waving papers during the speech. Not to mention that those three, that's right three, pieces of paper were nothing more than a summary focused on promoting individually owned insurance.
We all know that Wilson made that comment in response to Obama's statement about illegal immigrants not being covered under the bill. The Bill. You know H.R. 3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The same bill you can read for yourself right here and beat Wilson and some of his friends to it.
Where in that bill it clearly says, in all caps and plain English, easily understood by children prone to uncontrollable outbursts "H.R. 3200: Sec 246 NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS."
Clear enough? Can we move on?
Yeah, yeah, if this had happened during a speech by Bush the airways would be flooded by the likes of Limbaugh screaming for the guy's head and Beck frothing at the mouth with anti-American accusations, not to mention the GOP would have hemorrhaged over anyone acting like that towards the President.
The fact of the matter is, as Barney Frank said on Rachel Maddow, "It's a sign of how effective the President was."
Frank gave it two minutes -- exactly what it deserved.
Can we start looking into what was said in the speech? Can we discuss how we're going insure 46 million Americans who aren't insured and help the millions of others who are under-insured? And give those of us that are insured but not covered for anything more serious than the sniffles an affordable alternative?
The more attention and coverage we give people like Wilson the more he really does become a pimple on the ass of progress.
Let's pop it and move on.