Joe the Shouter

I was shocked, shocked, I say, to hear someone shout, "You lie," during the President's recent address to Congress on September 9. That someone was Representative Joe Wilson from South Carolina. Ms. Pelosi's break from her glazed default position was but the first of what has become swelling outrage over the congressman's cheek. I am not about to defend the man's act; he himself has admitted there is no defense by personally apologizing to the President and Vice-President.

But let's put things in perspective. On Sunday, Sept 13, Chris Wallace of Fox News interviewed Representative Joe. Here's the transcript. After playing a video clip of the President's speech and Rep. Wilson's "town hall moment," he was asked what he was thinking when he shouted, "You lie!" Here's his response:

I just felt so provoked because I am on committee, on the committee -- Education and Labor. I know the amendments that were on Ways and Means -- at Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce that the Democrats voted down for citizenship verification. So I knew what he said was not true. I read the bill. I read all 1,000 pages.

In other words, although the proposed bill (or bills) did not authorize the provision of health care for illegal immigrants, an illegal immigrant would be able to freely access these benefits. Joe Wilson was outraged because some disingenuous razzmatazz was creating free health care for illegals while giving the impression of doing the exact opposite. The inclusion of a "no-health-care-for-illegal-immigrants" provision was mere wrapping paper. As if to make his point, the inclusion of a real enforcement mechanism has now become a live issue in deliberations by the gang of six currently drafting a Senate bill.

For someone to lie, two conditions must be met: He must misrepresent the facts and know that he is misrepresenting the facts. Simply getting your facts wrong can involve making an honest mistake. But when a man states what is untrue, and knows it is untrue, he has lied. As Rep. Joe listened to the President's speech, he assumed two things: What the President is saying is not true, and the President knows it.

Checking the first condition for lying is relatively simple: How do the facts line up with what someone has said? In this case, the facts appear to cut both ways. A "no-illegals" provision is in the the bill. But the absence of adequate enforcement of this provision makes its inclusion pointless. I'm with Joe on test #1. An unenforced denial of benefits equals a provision of benefits.

The second question is a lot trickier because you have to get in someone's head. Joe Wilson assumed that the President could not possibly think that this bill, despite its professions to the contrary, would deny health care to an illegal immigrant. Joe's outburst reflected his conclusion that the President knew better, that he was consciously deceiving Congress. On this count, I am not sure. It is possible that the President knows the toothlessness of this denial constitutes a de facto provision of health care to illegals. But it is also possible the President thinks that simply because he has said, "no-health-care-for-illegal-immigrants," it will somehow happen.

Even "Joe the Shouter" has dialed it back. Later in his interview with Chris Wallace, he acknowledged that the President did not meet both tests for lying: Got his facts wrong, yes. Intentionally misrepresented the facts, no comment. Here's the dialog:

WALLACE: Do you think when the president was saying what he said there that he was lying?

WILSON: I believe he was misstating the facts.

WALLACE: Well, you didn't say that. You said, "You lie."

WILSON: Well, I truly would have said it in a different way if I had time. And I — I respect, again, the president. But what he said was not accurate and that's why I'm glad they've now agreed to having citizen verification on Friday.

Getting at the facts can be a challenge, but it is nothing compared to getting in another man's head! So, Joe's outburst might have benefited by sticking closer to the facts. Had he shouted - "Not true!" - he could have stayed away from claims that assume his accuracy as a mind-reader.

I am confident that the Democratically controlled congress will make an example of "Joe the Shouter." I wonder if they will succeed in crowning him as a poster boy for town-hall discontent and award him a land-slide re-election. Frankly, there is something to admire in the man. We are hungry for representatives who will boldly speak up against business-as-usual politics. Joe the Shouter may have displayed the right stuff.

Comments

[Austin]

Actually, the President didn't just tell one lie in that speech, he told many. And that is because HE IS A LIAR. Joe Wilson's declaration stopped short of the full truth.

The President constantly twists and contorts the literal meanings of words to make his lies true "enough." The list is so long that I don't want to bother cataloging all of his deceptions.

However, on this particular issue, his NEXT public remarks on immigrants and health-care quintessentially reveals his penchant for the "policy pirouette." He never means what his words suggest he does.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/18/obama-ties-immigration-to-health-care-battle/?feat=home_cube_position1

More to the point: someone who purports to embrace telling the truth cannot extending "civility" to a liar of this order of magnitude without betraying their own insincerity.

If Joe Wilson loves the truth, if any citizen does, that love demands an uncivil rebuke of the snake slithering around the White House these days.

[Austin]

Here's another article bolstering my argument.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703329_pf.html

[Randy]

Of course he is a liar, but that's not a politically correct or acceptable description for such an eloquent and respectable speaker who only wants to make your life better, to help the poor and down-trodden, and to instill hope and change to the masses. Come on, get with the program man!