If I were a fly on the wall in any house in the country I am sure that I would hear, at least once a day, a kid be told to "grow up" or "act your age." I know that when I was younger my mom would tell me that I was "acting like a five-year-old" or "acting like a baby." This is a type of scolding that people are supposed to grow out of, kind of like how you are supposed to grow out of diapers or out of training wheels. It is a change in a person that is expected, or our society will look down upon you.
Acting childish is in fact an insult that I think bears a certain amount of weight. So when Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, a 62-year-old man, shouted out in the middle of his President's big speech that was meant to set the tone for historic health care reform and said to the President, "You lie!" I was extremely shocked. You just don't do that. You never call the leader of the free world a liar. Especially not during a speech that was on virtually every channel on television and about a point on which the President was actually being very truthful.
There is, in fact, a specific section in the bill that says outright that there will be no care for illegal immigrants. It sounded as though Representative Wilson was being, well, pretty childish. His calling the President a liar over something that was truth shows that he was either lazy and didn't read the bill, or that he simply couldn't accept the dispelling of the lies that he and his fellow Republicans had spread.
Either option means that he didn't act his age. In the 24 hours since the speech and the outburst, the Democrat who plans to challenge Representative Wilson has received around $400,000 in donations. So I guess Wilson will have to really fight for a seat that he didn't win overwhelmingly in the first place. And if you lose your seat, I ask that you grow up and not act like a baby, Representative Wilson. If you had acted your age you wouldn’t be in this political timeout.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Arch Conservative
Which is worse? A president who hides his true intentions from us and lies to us every time he opens his mouth or a guy who calls him on it on national TV while said president is reading from his golden teleprompter?
2 - Arch Conservative
Oh hopefully once you get out of school and have to start making your own way in the world you'll realize that everything you believe now is a huge steaming pile of horseshit.
3 - zingzing
archie: "Which is worse? A president who hides his true intentions from us and lies to us every time he opens his mouth or a guy who calls him on it on national TV while said president is reading from his golden teleprompter?"
well, he wasn't telling a lie, was he? so... and he doesn't hide his true intentions and lie every time he opens his mouth, that's just your stupid, hyperbolic paranoia. so the guy who made an ass of himself (like you,) comes out looking worse in this case. how you can even ask that with a straight face just speaks volumes about your ridiculous perspective.
"Oh hopefully once you get out of school and have to start making your own way in the world you'll realize that everything you believe now is a huge steaming pile of horseshit."
everything YOU believe now is a huge steaming pile of horseshit. or do you wonder why everyone laughs at you so much?
4 - Dave Nalle
Zing, Obama is very good at wording his statements so that the lie is deniable. But if you really want to get down to it, he's still lying. The AP and the NYT have both cataloged the lies in the speech in question, and Wilson made a great rebuttal in an AP interview, basically pointing out that he was in the committee meetings where every attempt to exclude illegals from coverage was voted down on partisan lines, so he knew Obama was lying and couldn't keep silent.
I hear his campaign warchest is up $1 million at last count.
Dave
5 - zingzing
dave, you are very good at wording his statements so that the lie is deniable. and i was at those same committee meetings wilson was aggressively trying to insert the word "illegal" into every sentence, whether it fit or not.
and what's wilson's opponent's warchest looking like?
6 - Silas Kain
If the Democrats fail to bring Congressman Wilson into the well of the House and have him declare his act of contrition, they do not deserve to be the majority party. Wilson should be prosecuted with the same zeal which was afforded Bill Clinton. It's time for tit for tat.
Which is worse? A president who hides his true intentions from us and lies to us every time he opens his mouth...
Well, Arch. Are you talking about George W. Bush? Apply the same standards to your Savior, my friend. The more you go after Obama, the more I will speak loudly for an investigation into the Bush Administration which includes a full hearing at the Hague.
...or a guy who calls him on it on national TV while said president is reading from his golden teleprompter?
It's time for a full airing of all the dirt, Arch. And that INCLUDES Democrats. I want equal prosecution across teh political divide. Every sitting member of Congress has much to account and the American public is too damn stupid to realize it because people like you and Glenn Beck are throwing out smokescreens to divert our attention from the important issues of the day. You can continue your KKK-like mission against Barack Obama. I really don't care if you get all your feathers ruffled. The bottom line is that the majority of venom spit toward Obama is based in racism. If this President were Caucasian Q. WhiteBoy he would not be suffering the same lack of respect.
Another troubling factoid is that Joe Wilson's son is running for Attorney General of South Carolina and supports his Daddy's tacky, ignorant outburst. If I were a South Carolinian who is Black, Latino or Asian I would be very concerned. Wilson's spawn as the chief law enforcement officer of South Carolina is a very dangerous proposition.
7 - Christy Corp-Minamiji
Arthur raises a point in this article that, once again, seems to have been buried in vitriol. This country has lost its grip on civil debate. To shout insults in the middle of a speech is immature behavior regardless of the validity of one's point. (In my opinion, Mr. Wilson had no grounds for such a statement, but that is beside the point.)
Arch, I assume that you meant that Arthur's political views were a "steaming pile of..." since I can't see how an expectation of civil behavior from elected officials could possibly be construed as manure. For the record, I'm regrettably familiar with horseshit, and his opinions bear no resemblance.
In the interests of full disclosure since I'm new around here, yes,I am a registered Democrat, and, yes, I did vote for President Obama. I also love a good political debate minus the name calling.
8 - Silas Kain
This country has lost its grip on civil debate.
I heartily agree. But how can we get back to a civil debate in the United States? The last man standing on compromise died a few weeks ago. There is no one who serves in this Congress who can hold a candle to the way Ted Kennedy conducted his business.
I think we need to ask ourselves an honest question here. If this were a White Democrat in the White House, would there be as much vitriol? Obama's beer summit a few weeks back was a cheap photo opportunity. The truth is that racism lives well in Cambridge Massachusetts. The difference is that the targets of this racism are Asian females. That's the dirty little secret in Cambridge. The powers that be at Harvard and MIT know it. The Mayor knows it. The Police Chief knows it. The officer who arrested Professor Gates knows it -- because he and his brothers are part of the problem.
A little truth from Barack Obama with regard to racism would go a long way. Like it or not, African Americans, the President is half white. The same applies to Whites. Barack Obama is just as much "ours" as "theirs". And, in the final analysis, Barack Obama is all of us because he is an American and the office he holds demands a modicum of respect. It's time for an open dialog on race. Let's sit down at the table, hash it all out and move on once and for all.
9 - roger nowosielski
This country?
Just look at the BC microcosm. And we're supposed to be a cut above because all of us are fairly articulate. And yet . . .
10 - zingzing
roger: "And we're supposed to be a cut above because all of us are fairly articulate. "
what ever gave you that idea?
11 - roger nowosielski
I do suppose, zing, and correct me if I'm not mistaken, that most of us have the wherewithal to discuss issues in a far more effective and convincing ways than the average Joe Sixpack. And I'm not being an elitist, I believe, when I say this.
Just look at the kind of mob scene that defined most of the town-hall meetings.
And yet, it seems we can't do better.
12 - zingzing
"And yet, it seems we can't do better."
i just like to argue. if i were in dc today, i'd be making a necklace out of republican fingers. by the end of the day i'd be teabagging skulls. i think that might get me in trouble, but what with this administration, i might actually get away with it.
"what do you call a massacre on the mall?"
"a good start!"
anyway, that's why we come here. not for intelligent discussion, but as an outlet for our homicidal, political rage. right?
right?
am i the only one here who realizes the truth?
i see then that i am without peers. you are not fit to judge the likes of me.
13 - roger nowosielski
What's wrong with going to the gym for a workout? I don't think, besides, that's what you're up to. Haven't seen much rage coming out of you.
Point well taken, however.
14 - roger nowosielski
If anything, it's more like in order to exercise our immaturity and libidinal urges. So what I say to that? - have ravenous sex with the person or object of your unexpressed desired, be they real or imaginary.
Get your rocks off, for crying out loud, but don't contaminate this side with infantile urges or pseudo-intellectual pretensions.
15 - roger nowosielski
Seriously, people like that ought to be banned, fuck the First Amendment.
16 - roger nowosielski
In short, zing, I have no sympathy, none whatever, for philistines, barbarians and murderers of the sublime and the beautiful. Call me undemocratic if you will, but I'll live with that epithet without the slightest unease in my heart.
But I don't keep on talking to myself. Enough said.
17 - zingzing
if the first amendment is your object of choice, by all means, fuck it. i think it came alone tonight.
18 - roger nowosielski
You mean, "it reared it's ugly head"?
19 - Cindy
zing would be the funnest person to smoke pot with, i think.
20 - roger nowosielski
I happen to think you're right, Cindy, because then and only then you'd get to know "the real zing."
21 - zingzing
zing on pot likes to shut up and listen to music. if you want to see drug-induced zingjabbajabba, you have to procure cocaine. i don't buy the stuff, so you'd better be generous. jesus, that would be AWESOME! i am so in the mood.
22 - roger nowosielski
Cocaine does indeed loosen the tongue (and I don't mean it in a vulgar sense) and brings forth the consciousness.
23 - roger nowosielski
But so does Johnny Walker Black or Bushmill whiskey.
24 - Cindy
zing on pot likes to shut up and listen to music
me too, that's even better. i don't usually want to talk i want to listen to music and 'travel', or i want to watch the film 'the wife' and think (trying to race after and recapture the outrageous expanse of my thoughts as they threaten to escape is not conducive to conversation) so the rare pot occasion is one where i am alone. but i can imagine exceptions in the experience where i'd want to take a break from my solitude...and i can't imagine a funner person to talk to in the interstices. solitude in company and company in solitude.
(i think i'll skip the cocaine, that was way long ago, no value there for me...maybe a whiskey or 3 :-)
25 - El Bicho
should be a good party