Maureen Dowd’s NYT column about Joe Wilson…
In August, Clyburn picked up a newspaper to see that Wilson was
holding his first town hall meeting in Clyburn’s district, three
minutes from his house, at the high school Clyburn’s children went to
— an “in your face” breach of Congressional protocol.
“He was being confrontational and combative,” Clyburn said. “And
Wednesday night was just bringing his town hall meeting antics to the
floor of the House of Representatives.”
The black members of Congress were fed up, after a long, hot summer of
sulfurous attitudes toward the first black president. Clyburn
privately pressed Wilson three times last Thursday to apologize for
breaking the rules — Wilson’s own wife asked him who the “nut” was who
was hollering at the president — but the Republican was getting chesty
with his unlikely new role as king of the rowdies.
He was regarded as a hero at the anti-Obama rally in Washington last
weekend that featured such classy placards as, with a picture of a
lion, “The Zoo has an African and the White House has a Lyin’
African;” “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy;” “We came unarmed (this time)”
and “ ‘Cap’ Congress and ‘Trade’ Obama back to Kenya!”
A camera also caught Wilson in Washington signing for a fan a picture
of himself confronting the president, and he has raised $2 million in
the last week.
Former President Jimmy Carter weighed in with Brian Williams of NBC
News on Tuesday: “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely
demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the
fact that he is a black man.” He said he felt that was true in the
South and elsewhere.
Clyburn won the manners round, but Wilson was back Tuesday night
tweeting his rude new fans, people who, as the minority leader, John
Boehner, put it, are “scared to death that the country that they grew
up in is not going to be the country that their kids and grandkids
grew up in.”
It’s not. That country is gone. And in terms of biases that have
faded, that’s a good thing. But partly due to the Internet, the
standards of behavior in this new country are terrible.
If Beaver and Wally were around today, they’d likely be writing
snarky, revealing blogs about June and Ward.
