However, what irritates me is when my liberal classmates and professors pretend that this sort of thing is unprecedented - How dare the minority party disrespect the President like this! My suspicions of a double standard were confirmed today when I saw the Drudge Report. Turns out that Pres. Bush was disrespected, heckled and loudly booed by Dems during his 2005 State of the Union address. So it seems the Dems can't take what they dish out. Does that make it ok for Republicans to retaliate? NO. Wouldn't it be nice if BOTH parties would be mature enough to refrain from disrespecting the President during an address. Or am I asking too much?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
How Old are We?
For those who didn't watch last night, Pres. Obama was rudely interrupted during his health care address to Congress. Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "you lie!" when Obama was explaining that illegal immigrants will not be covered under his proposals. I think the childish outburst was totally uncalled for and disrespectful. He rightly issued an apology afterward, saying that he regretted doing that, and that his emotions got the better of him. I also thought that those little papers many Republicans kept waving around were stupid and childish too. It gave me a flashback to my senior year of high school when we played Mountain Crest at their gym in basketball. Their whole student section held up newspapers in front of their faces while we ran onto the court for starting lineups. You'd hope that members of Congress have matured a little since high school.
However, what irritates me is when my liberal classmates and professors pretend that this sort of thing is unprecedented - How dare the minority party disrespect the President like this! My suspicions of a double standard were confirmed today when I saw the Drudge Report. Turns out that Pres. Bush was disrespected, heckled and loudly booed by Dems during his 2005 State of the Union address. So it seems the Dems can't take what they dish out. Does that make it ok for Republicans to retaliate? NO. Wouldn't it be nice if BOTH parties would be mature enough to refrain from disrespecting the President during an address. Or am I asking too much?
However, what irritates me is when my liberal classmates and professors pretend that this sort of thing is unprecedented - How dare the minority party disrespect the President like this! My suspicions of a double standard were confirmed today when I saw the Drudge Report. Turns out that Pres. Bush was disrespected, heckled and loudly booed by Dems during his 2005 State of the Union address. So it seems the Dems can't take what they dish out. Does that make it ok for Republicans to retaliate? NO. Wouldn't it be nice if BOTH parties would be mature enough to refrain from disrespecting the President during an address. Or am I asking too much?
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3 comments:
I disagree. I think we should encourage childish behavior in Congressional sessions and start charging to see it à la pay-per-view boxing. We can use the proceeds to pay down the deficit.
Seriously though, I hate to refer to my own blog again, but I wrote a post about health care today wherein I pointed out how humorous it is that he yelled "You lie!" in response to pretty much the only true thing Obama said all evening.
I beginning to be very entertained by our nation's political circus. It's much better than reality shows.
Good post, Dev. I agree that it was out of line during the speech. A congressman should have more control of his emotions. So the immediate apology was appropriate, as was the White House's acceptance. Maybe some day we will have the PM in the well in a lively parliamentary exchange with the MPs. Until that is the norm, no outbursts please, on either side.
On the substance of the comment though, Rep. Wilson was not far off, if at all. The house bill has a toothless provision that funded services will only go to people who are legally here. The republicans offered two amendments that would require some verification, and both were voted down. So Pres. Obama WOULD HAVE BEEN correct to say the bill prohibits services to illegals. But he WAS WRONG to say that illegal aliens will not receive services under the bill. That's the part that Rep. Wilson (I heard his explanation) felt was "wrong" (apologetically corrected from "You Lie!") Splitting hairs? that's what politicians, including Pres. Obama, often do.
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