I’ve long enjoyed reading Adam Fogle‘s Palmetto Scoop (and not just because I love the “Office Space” allusion of his “TPS reports“).
So I’m sorry to see that Adam is offering (for free, at least — he’s not trying to make money off of this) “I’m With Joe Wilson” T-shirts, to conservatives who “wish their Congressman would be as bold as Wilson.”
The blogosphere is a place where we can have fun, a place for irony, for satire, for all sorts of things that might have been out of place in your granddaddy’s news source. But here’s a situation in which I feel compelled to channel what Tom Wolfe called The Victorian Gent:
It was as if the press in America, for all its vaunted independence, were a great colonial animal, an animal made up of countless clustered organisms responding to a central nervous system. In the late 1950’s (as in the late 1970’s) the animal seemed determined that in all matters of national importance the proper emotion, the seemly sentiment, the fitting moral tone, should be established and should prevail…
Wolfe meant to deride the Gent as a hypocritical creature. But here’s a case where we need him, because there is such a thing as a correct reaction to Joe Wilson’s behavior last night. It is to be deplored, not celebrated. Joe Wilson knows that; it’s why he apologized.
And until I saw this, I would have thought that Adam Fogle knew that, too.
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Meanwhile, we have GOP operative Adam Piper saying this:
“Joe Wilson is a good face for the party – not because of what he said but because of his decades of service. He’s been a Teenage Republican, a College Republican, a SC GOP 3rd Vice Chairman, a legislator, and always been a cheerleader for the conservative cause – now it’s our time to cheer for him and help him on.”
Guys, Joe did a bad thing. He knows it. He apologized for it. Support him for doing THAT, if you must support him…
I sent money to Rob Miller. I wrote Joe a letter and reminded him about the Four Way Test, which he failed last night. Shame shame shame.
Folks, companies do not want to locate here because it resembles a frat house, in the worst possible way.
You must have missed the clip on MSNBC where Wilson very clearly said he apologized because his “leadership” told him to.
I later saw Jim Clyburn say Wilson has refused to apologize to his colleagues in the House from the floor.
Brad, what’s the difference in Adam Piper’s quote and what you said earlier about Graham, Lieberman, McCain and Riley? Both of you seem to be giving free passes based on your perceptions of the past positions, behavior of your guys.
No politician deserves that kind of freeby.
I don’t know what you mean. I said that in the context of saying Graham was wrong about something. I said that because I respect him, I thought harder about whether I might be wrong… but when I was done thinking, I still said he was the one who was wrong…
How is that a freeby?
Kathryn, did you see Rob as a strong candidate? Do you want him in Congress? If not, is sending him money just because he stands in opposition to Joe a good move?
After all, you could have sent the money to ME. I mean, maybe I SHOULD run…
Seriously, surely someone else will emerge between now and next year, someone stronger than Rob. And yet what you’ve just done, by giving him money, is to make it LESS likely that someone else will emerge, given the remorseless math of campaign finance…
When is Clyburn going to apologize for saying the people are too gullible to buy their own medical insurance; they must be told what to do by the government?
When is Clyburn going to apologize for saying (Feb 20), that the Democrats’ health care proposals “are the down payment on full reparations”…, and anyone who opposed universal care was “a racist”?