That Congressman Joe Wilson was formally reprimanded yesterday in the Senate for “breach of decorum and degraded proceeding the joint session” of Congress is hardly satisfactory. If you recall, last week, Joe Wilson [R-S.C.] shouted “You lie” as President Barack Obama explained to the nation that undocumented immigrants would not be covered under the new health care legislation.
The uncouth, unprincipled Wilson needs to be recalled by the voters of South Carolina. Even former president Jimmy Carter said Wilson’s statement was racially motivated. Wilson’s unprecedented outburst [some say he was told by Republican leaders to bellow the outburst “You lie”] is not only illustrative of his extreme and reactionary opposition to immigration, it is representative of his ultra-right wing Republican stance against the first African American president of the United States. Wilson is an incorrigible and unrepentant segregationist who voted to keep the Confederate Flag flying over the South Carolina statehouse, calling it “The Southern heritage, the Confederate heritage is very honorable” [He lost the vote on the flag, 36-7].
Seasoned political observers know Wilson served as the aide to the unabashed archenemy of African Americans, the late South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, arguably Congress’ fiercest opponent of Civil Rights legislation. Thurmond conducted the longest filibuster in U.S. history when he opposed the Civil Rights Bill of 1957. Thurmond was exposed in the last few years as a hypocrite and phony when it was revealed that he fathered an illegitimate child by one of his black maids.
Wilson was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as having been “taken over in the past decade by radical neo-Confederates who favor secession [from the United States] and defend slavery as a benign [or innocent] institution.”
His laughable, half-hearted apology to President Obama, which the president accepted, is nonetheless insufficient to redress his boorish behavior and not enough for us to forget what he stands for — white supremacy and racial separation. And for that, Wilson needs to be ousted out of office. –terry shropshire
