What He Said, Too

I missed Obama’s big health care speech the other night – the whole thing’s been so watered down that I’ve got little interest, plus we were playing T&T at the time – so I missed the outburst from a GOPer Rep from South Carolina when he blurted out “you lie!” It’s been hard to miss the press coverage of the aftermath, tho’, which would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetic. I agree with Glenn Greenwald’s take (via TalkLeft):

Eugene Robinson today absurdly calls the GOP's disrespectful behavior at Obama's speech 'un-American.' Right-wing contempt for Obama is often petty, deeply emotional and ugly -- just like right-wing leaders themselves. But the demand that the President be venerated and treated as royalty is far more 'un-American' than disruptive transgressions of etiquette. Wilson's heckling was juvenile and dumb, but that's all it was. If only a fraction of the media dismay devoted to his two-second breach of 'decorum' had been directed to, say, rampant presidential lawbreaking, or the implementation of a torture regime, or the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people in our various wars, we would be much better off. The American Right is indeed dominated by crazed extremists who often seem barely in touch with basic reality and who are at war with core American political values, but Joe Wilson's irreverence is one of the least significant examples of that, if it's one at all.

I’ll trade civility in favor of the truth any day of the week. Let’s move on to something important, shall we?