THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH

Dear Readers,

In a historic vote the other day, the U.S. House Of Representatives voted 778-197 to tell Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) to shut his stupid pie hole. The vote was a bit of a surprise, since there are only 435 members of the house, but it's rumored that some may have voted twice to censure the hick-state loudmouth. Yet, the whole controversy - when Rep. Wilson shouted "You Lie" at President Obama as he was giving a speech to the Congress on health care - is a result of a colossal misunderstanding.

A few days before the unfortunate incident, a reporter asked President Obama what book he was reading these days. Obama, always open and friendly to nosy reporters, answered that he had just finished H.G. Wells' War Of The Worlds and quipped that "If this country had had a decent health care system in place, the Martian aliens might have been able to get treatment for their inability to tolerate earth germs, and in spite of their illegal invasion of this planet, we might have saved them and gone on together to build a more peaceful and prosperous universe". Well, the humorless reporter took the President seriously and wrote that Obama was proposing health care for illegal aliens as part of his reform package, and the rest is history. Wilson, no fan of The President or H.G. Wells, read this bogus story, then went on to commit his faux pas by rudely interrupting (and waking up several dozing lawmakers) the President as Obama got to the point in his speech where he declared that no illegal aliens would be covered by the proposed Federal plan.

Washington D.C. acted as if it were shocked by the outburst, but a quick check of the history books shows us that this kind of interruption of Presidential addresses to Congress is far from rare. In an age before TV, lawmakers often broke into important speeches with insults and remarks. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover was droning on at Congress when Senator Marvin 'Peanuts' Anchovy (D-Ohio) shouted "Eat Me" as the hapless President came to a passage in his speech debunking the rumor that he was giving prime farmland in Nebraska to a group of bi-polar yak herders. Representative L. Gruber Kissingbottom (R-Wisconsin) was ejected from the well of the House during a 1946 speech by President Hairy Truman when he let out a 32-second belch that reeked of Limburger Cheese, momentarily distracting the bespectacled former haberdasher as he came to a critical point in his speech regarding the sale of Carpenter Ants to Yugoslavia. Even today, leaders of other great democracies suffer from a certain amount of incivility when attempting to address serious issues. In Britain, for example, President Gordon Ramsay must endure taunts, jeers and a shower of spitballs as he attempts to speak during the weekly Prime Minister's question time - plus, by tradition, he must deliver his remarks in the nude.

So, we don't need to overreact to the Tourrette's-like utterance of one dimwitted congressperson, we're a lot tougher than that, aren't we? The censure by his fellow legislators - plus the severe physical beating administered to Rep. Wilson in the House steam-room by disgusted Democrats and Republicans - ought to be enough punishment.