“You lie!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. Sounds like something a kindergarten kid would shout out on the playground, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, the venue was not a playground; it was the hallowed halls of The United States Congress. It was not a kindergartener shouting at one of his little playmates, but a four-term United States Congressman from South Carolina screaming at…(Are you ready for this?)…The President of the United States! (Sounds like a scene from a really bad Al Pacino movie, doesn’t it?) And he did it in the Congressional Chamber in front of a joint session of Congress and the entire freaking world via telecommunication satellites!

Congressman Joe Wilson not only made an ass out of himself, his party, and his constituents, but The United States itself in front of our global friends and our global enemies.

According to the congressman, the unfortunate outburst was a spontaneous reaction.

Do you believe that?

I don’t.

The man was sitting in the Congressional Chamber listening to The President of the United States deliver an important speech, and he forgot where he was???!!! Not hardly. I believe that Mr. Wilson knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew that Obama-bashing and violent, uncouth, and unwarranted attacks against “liberals” was very much accepted as “business as usual” these days.

I was in counseling once to learn how to curb my temper. I had previously always used the excuse that my temper had a hair trigger, and that it was uncontrollable.

My therapist gave me the following two scenarios to prove to me that, no matter HOW quickly my temper kicks in, I am always in control, and I always make a conscious decision to either lose or not lose my composure.

Scenario #1. You’re sitting at the bar in a pub. Suddenly, somebody smashes into you from behind, sending your full pint of beer spilling all over you and the bar. You spin around and find a little pipsqueak of a man standing behind you. So you lace into him with a barrage of foul language, threatening to do him bodily harm.

Scenario #2. You’re sitting at the bar in a pub. Suddenly, somebody smashes into you from behind, sending your full pint of beer spilling all over you and the bar. You spin around . . . and there is a six-foot-three Hell’s Angel’s biker standing behind you…

Temper is always a choice.

And, if Joe Wilson’s emotions really did run away with him during the President’s speech, and he just blurted out his statement without consciously knowing it at the time, would you want such an unstable man representing you in Congress, passing laws and making decisions that have direct impacts upon you and your nation? Knee-jerk reactions, in my opinion, have no place in Washington D.C., where the fates of millions are affected by them.

Congressman Wilson overstepped the boundaries of what is acceptable to his fellow party members, not because of what he did, but because of where he did it. This time, the infantile behavior took place on the world stage, and everybody, including the man’s constituents, was horrified by the spectacle of his completely inappropriate and embarrassing actions.

President Obama gave the comment the attention that it deserved – he ignored it.

By the time the speech was over, Mr. Wilson realized that he had miscalculated, and he bolted from the chamber, answering no questions and making no comments. The following day, he called The White House and tendered an apology, but the damage had already been done.
Within twenty-four hours of the comment, the people of South Carolina reacted to it by pouring over $200,000 of additional funds into the campaign coffers of the congressman’s Democratic rival.

What Mr. Wilson did the other night was show the whole world what has been the Republican political strategy since Mr. Obama won the presidential election. The problem was, this time, the boorish actions were unfiltered. We all heard it and saw it happening in real time. There wasn’t any time for the conservative talk show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh, to put a positive spin on it. We all saw it raw and uncensored for the first time, and even the Republicans admitted that it was childish, hateful and embarrassing.

If I was a Republican today, I would seriously consider changing my party’s tactic when dealing with the loyal opposition. Idiotic, inflammatory and infantile attacks may sell commercials on The Rush Limbaugh Show, but they are counter-productive and just downright insulting to all sides when they are used as the basis for public debate.

Currently, the Republican Party is experiencing an exodus of members who have become disillusioned by the antics of a very vocal minority among their ranks. (Check the voting registers in your state if you don’t believe me.)

As a fairly liberal person politically, I see this as something that is not good for the country. We need open, honest debate of opposing viewpoints in Washington in order to ensure an even-handed approach to our national problems. We need to hear from “the other side” no matter what side we are on, and we need to be able to “reach across the aisle” when the opposition proves their point.

Life is not black and white, as Mr. Limbaugh and his ilk would have us believe. No one side has all the answers.

We need to re-learn civility. We need to re-learn the concepts of fairness. We need to re-learn how to be open-minded and less invested in our own narrow views of the world. We need to re-learn how to have open and honest debates on topics, and not all-out brawls and name-calling sessions.

If we cannot re-learn these simple concepts, then not only will one party or the other lose out, but we as a nation will become greatly diminished.

What Joe Wilson did the other day is unacceptable. If he had a point to make about illegal aliens and medical insurance, the point was lost in the fog of his antics.

In one respect though, Mr. Wilson did do us all a service by shining the stark light of reality on the kind of shameful acts that are becoming commonplace in our political arenas.

William F. Buckley, where are you now that really need you?