Opinion

Kyle Serfass
Columnist

“Yo, Kanye West, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish, but Joe Wilson had one of the best disrespectful public outbursts of all time!”
-Me, watching Kanye West interrupt Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs

By now everyone must have heard about how Joe Wilson, a Republican Congressman from South Carolina, interrupted President Obama during his address to Congress on health care. In short, Obama was asserting that the health care bill would not allow illegal, undocumented immigrants from receiving the benefits of the public option. Immediately following this assertion, Rep. Wilson shouted, “You lie!,” inciting the disdain of his fellow delegates (well, most of them anyway) and the wrath of Nancy Pelosi and her death stare. Wilson would later apologize to the president but would refuse to deliver an apology on the House floor. This would lead the House to pass a resolution admonishing Wilson.

Follow up:

Now, this incident was not the worst case of a congressman turning his dissent into disrespect in Congress. After all, it would be hard one-up Preston Brooks beating Charles Sumner over the head with a cane while he sat at his desk in the Senate back in 1856 over a disagreement on the issue of slavery. Still, Wilson’s outburst was serious. It was, in fact, the first time in the history of the House that a congressman was admonished for interrupting the president during an address. What’s more, it represents the same major problem of our nation’s being unable to have respectful disagreement and debate that I mentioned in my last article.

Worse yet, Wilson has faced charges that his outburst was due to Obama’s race by some in the media, including Tim Wise, author of White Like Me, who was our commencement speaker here in Fall 2007. Now, no one can really know what is in Wilson’s heart of hearts with respect to race. However, some circumstantial facts about Joe Wilson should be considered when considering this issue. Firstly, Joe Wilson is a member of the group Sons of Confederate Veterans, a neo-Confederate group that celebrates Confederate history. Secondly, he was one of the staunchest defenders of flying the Confederate battle flag over South Carolina’s state capital, saying, “the Confederate history is very honorable.” Finally, he has mentioned Strom Thurmond as one of the men he most respects and defended him when Strom’s black daughter spoke out against him. Do these things inherently make him a racist or prove that his outburst was motivated by race? No, but they certainly make his actions especially suspicious.

Now, many conservatives say that, as Wilson apologized to Obama and Obama accepted the apology, it is a waste of time to have the House admonish Wilson. I believe, however, that as House rules specifically prohibit a congressman from calling the president a liar, Wilson ought to apologize to the House itself, and as he refused to do that he deserved this admonishment, which was barely a slap on the wrist.

Was the admonishment based on politics, the desire of Democrats to crush the disrespectful dissent shown by Wilson and by many other people across the nation at town hall meetings on the health care issue? Yes, it was. However, it is certainly arguable that Wilson’s outburst was a political ploy itself. Whether or not he went into the House the day of the president’s address intending to get some attention, he is certainly profiting from the attention. He has, in fact, received over one million dollars in donations for his campaign since his outburst. (His opponent in the election has received about as much himself.) To me, a man who is so willing to profit from his own deplorable actions does not seem overly repentant and legitimately deserves a scolding.

The bottom line is, wherever you stand on the health care debate, you should respect those who disagree with you. I might agree with Rep. Barney Frank that talking with anyone who calls the president a Nazi is like trying to have a conversation with a piece of furniture, but I respect those who oppose the public option but do it in a respectful way. Conservatives are perfectly right to pressure Obama on the issue of passing legislation that would increase the deficit (but perhaps not on the erroneous idea of the creation of Death Panels). And liberals are right to push for a plan that would give all Americans health care. No matter where you stand, we are all Americans who should respect one another and reject pushy, arrogant jerks who want to disrespect others and aggrandize themselves like Joe Wilson (and Kanye West).