And so it begins: an attempt to obscure and downplay something that happened — something that Republican party elders clearly did not want to happen and moved quickly to get the person involved to rectify. Rep. Joe Wilson yelled out “You lie” during Barack Obama’s speech to Congress and that was the issue last night.
But now, via the Drudge Report and other new and old media pundits, an all too familiar shell game is going on. It’s an attempt to distract from the issue: Harry Reid called Bush a liar (but did he shout it out during a joint session of Congress when the President was speaking?)…Barack Obama said some things that were equally not nice about Bush (did he shout it out during a joint session of Congress when the President was speaking?)…Democrats booed Bush (not good and reprehensible but did any of them shout out “You lie” when Bush was speaking?).
The real issue is what was shouted out last night, the setting and how it fit within a context of an ugly summer when American political demonization and rudeness plunged to depths so low that you could film a new version of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” 300 feet above it and still be at the bottom of the sea.
All the rest is an attempt to use an old and now tiresome tactic: the best defense is a good offense. Deflect. Try to confuse the issue.
GOPers did the right thing in reportedly insisting that Wilson apologize, which he did and Obama accepted it.
Now some are trying to pretend that the issue was something else. It wasn’t: the furor was over an incredibly rude act that has not been seen during a joint session of Congress that violated the way that body has acted for some 200 years. P-e-r-i-o-d.
All the rest is a bunch of this.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.