In September 2009, President Barack Obama delivered a speech on health care policy to a joint session of Congress, and assured the public that his plan would not extend benefits to undocumented immigrants. Rep. Joe Wilson responded by shouting, “You lie!”
Substantively, Obama was right and the South Carolina Republican was wrong, but this wasn’t the detail that stood out at the time. In the United States, there was an expectation that elected officials, especially on Capitol Hill during a presidential address, would conduct themselves with a degree of dignity.
Members don’t want to applaud? Fine. They don’t want to stand during ovations? No problem. But the floor of the U.S. House is not a comedy club, and presidential addresses are not wrestling matches. Federal policymakers in the world’s preeminent superpower are supposed to have some class.
Wilson’s breach in protocol was considered stunning — there were audible gasps in the room at the time — and no GOP leaders were willing to defend the congressman’s heckling. Within hours of the speech, Wilson was on the phone with the White House apologizing, and the South Carolinian publicly conceded that his outburst was “inappropriate and regrettable.”
The House formally rebuked Wilson less than a week after the address — and seven GOP lawmakers voted with Democrats in support of the resolution.
Nearly 14 years later, the incident almost seems quaint.
Toward the end of his 2022 State of the Union address, President Joe Biden reflected on the dangers U.S. troops have faced in the Middle East, and he referenced the cancer-stricken troops who ended up in flag-draped coffins. It was at that point that Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado thought it’d be a good idea to heckle the Democrat.
Last night, as The New York Times reported, the jeers were even more intense.
President Biden was about midway through a speech of about 7,218-words on Tuesday when a Republican lawmaker tried to shut him down…
Read the full article here
