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"Though President Obama has formally accepted the apology of Joe "You lie!" Wilson, the fallout from the emotional outburst continues to ripple across the nation, even raising doubts about the Republican congressman's political future.
Ninety minutes after Obama finished his address, the South Carolina representative—who yelled out "You lie!" after the president said he had never proposed providing coverage to illegal immigrants—issued a statement explaining he "let my emotions get the best of me." According to the congressman's office, Wilson also made a personal phone call to the White House in hopes of apologizing to Obama himself, but instead had to express his apologies to gatekeeper Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Disapproving co-workers
Amid the regret and confessions of guilt, USA Today reports on the disapproval coming from both sides of the political aisle:
"There ought to be a reprimand or censure of Rep. Joe Wilson to discourage that kind of conduct in the future," Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., said via Twitter.
"I cringed," Rep. David Dreier, the top-ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, said about his reaction to the outburst. "I think it's just unfortunate."
"I've been here a long time," said House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.,a 23-year House veteran, "I've never heard anyone accost a president like that."
Even Sen. John McCain, Obama's recent opponent, chimed in on CNN to call it "totally disrespectful" and was one of several senior Republicans to urge Wilson to apologize.
Campaign gets new life
In addition to the flak Wilson's received from his colleagues, the American people are making their disdain known as well. According to The Nation, Rob Miller, a Democrat and Marine Corps veteran, who was planning to run against Wilson in 2010, raised more than $50,000 for his campaign within just a few hours after Wilson's outburst.
Miller, who ran in 2008 without any help from national Democrats, lost to Wilson 46 to 54 percent. But with his newfound boost in popularity, his campaign has been given a new life. He tweeted Wednesday night: "55K raised, let's double THAT in 12 hours."
According to Miller's site, ActBlue.com, Miller has raised over $300,000 since Thursday afternoon. Almost half of the money has come from readers of the progressive blog Daily Kos, who created a fundraising page called "Defeating the man who yelled 'liar' at Obama."
But who's the liar?
As it turns out, the man who called Obama the liar may actually be off base. According to Politifact.com, a nonpartisan site dedicated to fact-checking the claims of "candidates, elected officials, political parties, interest groups, pundits, talk show hosts," Obama wasn't lying when he said the health-care reforms he's proposing would not apply to illegal immigrants.
"Obama can make a pretty thorough case that reform doesn't apply to those here illegally. We don't find the public option argument enough to make the case that Obama 'lied.' We rate Wilson's statement False."
From tearful town halls to emotional public outbursts, from finger-pointing to even finger-biting, if we've learned anything from the past few months it's that debating health care has the ability to elicit the rawest, sometimes basest emotions from the people of this country.
We've also learned it's a bad time to be a congressman with the last name Wilson. (Ohio congressman Charlie Wilson, with no relation to Joe Wilson—or to Texas politician Charlie Wilson of the movie "Charlie Wilson's War"—has since been put in an awkward position.)"
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“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”.
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