Clowning around with health care

Maybe you can help me out with something. I was driving down Sunset Blvd. in West Columbia this morning, and sorta kinda saw something for a fraction of a second, and I’m not sure I know what I saw. If you saw it, maybe you can clear this up.

I was driving past Joe Wilson’s office, and as I whiffed by, happened to glance at a clump of three people (at least I think there were three) loitering on the sidewalk at the corner.  One was sitting on a bicycle. I don’t remember what the second person was doing. The third was holding up a sign that said “Stop Clowning around with our Health Care.” I think. We’re talking split-second here, and I turned away before any of it registered on my mind.

The person holding the sign was wearing a blue outfit with white designs on it from neck to toe. It may have been a clown outfit, but I’m infering that from the sign. He or she may also have been wearing clown makeup, but I have no idea at all about that, because his/her face was blocked by the sign during that tenth of a second or whatever it was.

As I drove on, a number of questions occurred to me:

  • Did I read the sign right?
  • Was the person dressed as a clown? Possibly not. The power of suggestion from what I think the sign said overwhelmed what other information was available to me.
  • Were the other people involved in the demonstration, or just curious passersby?
  • Was this person working for Joe Wilson, and saying President Obama was “clowning” with our health care? (If so, hasn’t Joe called enough attention to himself?)
  • Was this person protesting that Joe Wilson was the one “clowning around with our health care?” (I’ve noticed that one of the favorite epithets hurled at Joe from leftist bloggers is “ass clown,” for some reason) If so, he or she was going to a lot of trouble to send a confused message. You’d have to stop and talk to find out, which not many are in a position to do at that stretch of road at that time.

I was in a hurry to get downtown just then, but I went back that way later to check. No one there. No clown. No guy on a bike. No third person who barely registered. All gone. Must have been a drive-time thing. Or my imagination. I wonder what I saw, and what it was supposed to mean?

Anyway, right after I saw them, as those questions were going through my mind, I reached a stretch where orange roadwork cones were jamming the traffic into one lane. I found myself behind a big white pickup truck. It had a bumper sticker on it with a message that there was no mistaking:

OBAMA

SUCKS

Such is the state of political discourse these days in the 2nd District…

8 thoughts on “Clowning around with health care”

  1. RalphHightower

    I saw several pictures today from twitpic. They were on the sidewalk in front of Joe Wilson’s Columbia office, not his reelection office near the chicken processing plant.

    Today, I met a guy who think’s Obama is a Kenyan! And thought it was perfectly acceptable for a legislator to heckle the president in Congress!

    What Rep. Joe Wilson did this week was rude, disrepectful and out of order (Rules of Roberts). The House and Senate have their own rules of procedure, but I doubt that the House rules allow a legislator to heckle someone that has the floor to speak.

    So, a little known politician from South Carolina, Rep. Joe Wilson, is now a national “Cult Hero” of political discourse and rudeness.

    Now, I am going to bash the Democrats.

    When the Democrats took control of the House, Pelosi said that she would let the Republicans participate in the lawmaking process in the House.

    Pelosi has broken that promise to the nation! Instead, the Democrats are doing to the Republicans what the Republicans did to the Democrats when the Republicans were in power.

    Nothing has changed in Washington.

  2. Lee Muller

    The Kenyan government proclaimed Obama as “a Kenyan” after the election, then they toned it down.

    We don’t don’t know where he was actually born, or what nationality he claimed on his college applications, because he has six law firms fighting to keep all his records sealed.

    The Democrat media which brayed about George Bush’s school records and National Guard records are afraid to touch Obama.

  4. Lee Muller

    I disapprove of Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar during his speech.

    But Obama is a pathological serial liar, and Joe Wilson is obligated to point it out in every other appropriate venue.

    Obama needs to come to a forum where real citizens can ask him real questions, without a teleprompter. A courtroom would be good, too.

  6. RalphHightower

    @kbfenner,

    Thank you for the link that you provided.

    It took some digging, but I found the Rules of the 111th House: http://www.rules.house.gov/ruleprec/111th.pdf

    Rep. Joe Wilson violated a few rules:
    [pg 32]
    RULE XVII Decorum And Debate.
    Decorum
    1. (a) A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner who desires to speak or deliver a matter to the House shall rise and respectfully address the Speaker and, on being recognized, may address the House from any place on the floor. When invited by the Chair, a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner may speak from the Clerk’s desk.
    1. (b) Remarks in debate (which may include references to the Senate or its Members) shall be confined to the question under debate, avoiding personality.

    [Pg 40]
    RULE XXIII
    CODE OF OFFICIAL CONDUCT
    There is hereby established by and for the House the following code of conduct, to be known as the ‘‘Code of Official Conduct’’:
    1. A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.

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