On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:53:21 -0700, Joan Warmbold wrote: >And now the right-wing groups are successfully drumming up >public support for Joe's strident remark. I strongly suspect that >this entire incident and the support that is now swelling up for >Mr. Wilson was all planned and orchestrated in advance in order >to denigrate and dishonor Obama in a very public forum. I mean, >when given due reflection, does it really make sense that a member >of our Congress would lose it like that when such has never, ever >occurred before? I checked out Joe Wilson's background and >there's nothing there that would suggest that Mr. Wilson has so little >self-control but, instead, suggests quite to the contrary. > > http://www.joewilson.house.gov/
Uh, maybe Mr. Wilson was channeling that other great South Carolina politician Andrew Butler who beat the Senator from Massachusetts with a cane over the head (metaphorically, speaking). See: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-manatt/emsouth-carolinians-gone_b_283397.html Then again, maybe he was channeling himself. Consider: |In 2002, during a C-SPAN discussion about Iraq's capabilities for |nuclear and biological weapons, Wilson attacked Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) |as harboring "hatred of America" at least four times when Filner suggested |Saddam Hussein may have obtained some technologies from the United States. | |In 2003, when The Washington Post persuaded Essie Mae Washington-Williams |to publicly identify herself as the biracial daughter of Thurmond, who once had |been an avowed segregationist, Wilson accused the woman of trying to "smear" |the senator, who had died six months earlier. "It's a smear on the image that |[Thurmond] has as a person of high integrity who has been so loyal to the people |of South Carolina," Wilson said. | |When the Thurmond family acknowledged that Washington-Williams was |indeed Thurmond's daughter, Wilson apologized but did not back down |from his assertion that she should have kept quiet http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10/AR2009091002051_pf.html There appear to be a number of South Carolina politicians who have behaved badly (for an equal opportunity list of politicians behaving badly see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_scandals_of_the_United_States ) but I think I'll wait for the definitive presentation of that by that other son of South Carolina, Dr. Stephen Colbert, who returns from hiatus next week. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu . --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
