I have mixed feelings about Representative Joe Wilson’s outburst on the House Floor during Obama’s speech on nationalizing Health Care. Generally speaking, I suppose I disapprove, but I do love that Democrats cannot tolerate the tactics they’ve employed for decades.
Let’s put aside for a moment that Obama was lying. Such comments are generally better left said after the speech, when the accuser can back up their accusation with supporting facts. I cannot, however, ignore the blatant hypocrisy. Obama was just moments before calling those who disagreed with him liars.
“Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.”
So, essentially, the message here is that it is acceptable to call names from the Bully Pulpit, but the President should not have to endure the same from his audience? That seems antithetical to democracy.
Republicans, however, have been successfully toeing a dangerous line. They’ve been exploiting their activists and nutcases without yet scaring the general electorate. This is not sustainable, and at some point the Republicans will either have to quiet down their people, or face a devastating backlash.
Take, for example, the election of 2004. The mostly unpopular President Bush edged out John Kerry largely due to the fact that the Democrat base seemed demented. Howard Dean, in the Democrat primary, uncovered a cache of web-savvy and vocal radical left-wing fringe disaffected voters, who felt comfortable blaming 9/11 on Jews and a secret Neo-Con cabal. Dean pandered to this fringe and obtained frontrunner status. The Democrats pulled the rug out from under him in the Iowa Caucus, hoping that a more mainstream John Kerry would appeal more to the moderates and independents. Dean’s defiant scream after his Iowa loss sealed his fate, but his followers quickly shrugged off his loss and attached themselves to the Kerry campaign. The result—George Bush achieved more votes than any other presidential candidate in American history.
In 2008, the Republicans found their own wing-nut magnet in one Dr. Ron Paul. Like Dean, his supporters also blamed 9/11 and the War in Iraq on a shadowy cabal of Jews and Neo-Cons. While his support was never as wide as Howard Dean’s, it was certainly as deep. Paul managed to beat out many mainstream candidates, including assumed-frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, and he outfundraised all his GOP competition. When he finally did go down, he refused to endorse John McCain, leaving McCain more or less free from the help or hindrance from the right-wing fringe (although some of the exploits of Joe the Unlicensed Tax-Cheating Plumber started to make McCain look silly near the end of the campaign).
This is not to say that utilizing the more colorful ideologues in the movement is totally unhelpful. Barack Obama’s primary base, that which allowed him to defeat Hillary Clinton, were the same people who backed Howard Dean in the previous election. Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink and other groups constantly disrupted Bush’s presidential speeches, getting into State-of-the-Union addresses by congressional invitation and by obtaining press passes from mainstream media outlets, leading the most successful activist takedown of a president in US history.
Similarly, since Obama’s election, the Right has watched their activist base participate in Tea Parties (so-called to invoke images of Samuel Adams’ protest against the British Tea Tax) and commandeered town hall meetings held by left-leaning congressmen on the issues relating to health care reform. The result has been a plummet in Obama’s approval and a crippling of a once-inevitable health care bill. The activist Right somehow even managed to make an issue out of the president giving a speech to schoolchildren, beseeching them to stay in school and study hard, an innocuous speech that we should all have encouraged (although accompanied by a creepy neo-fascist lesson plan asking the kids how they can serve President Obama—taken out promptly as soon as it hit the light of scrutiny).
What makes the Joe Wilson outburst different is that he is a sitting member of the House of Representatives, sitting in on a presidential speech to a Joint Session of Congress. He crossed a new line, which will be used to justify future incivility. Further, he may have finally dragged the GOP over that fine line between effective politicking and scaring the bajeezus out of the electorate.
Republicans are experts at stealing defeat from the jaws of victory, and there is a good chance that Wilson may be the catalyst for a popular about-face on Obamacare.
