Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina will certainly get a lot of attention today, after he yelled, "You lie!" at President Obama during his speech to Congress on health reform.
The outburst came soon after the President had all but labeled critics of his bill as liars for arguing that illegal aliens would be covered under the plan.
This was how the White House transcript of the speech recounted it:
Obama: "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. (Applause.)
There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You lie! (Boos.)
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About 90 minutes after the speech was over, Wilson apologized to the President in a written statement issued by his office.
One final note from my vantage point on this - I would never have thought Wilson would have been the one to yell at the President during a speech.
Yeah, he's conservative, but I wouldn't have predicted his name as a likely heckler during a Joint Session.
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