division on exactly what president obama might do when push come to shove over this idea of a public insurance plan. last night, he left it very up in the air. and that's enabled liberals and conservatives to say he's leaning more in my direction. eventually, someone will have to make a call on this. >> roger, does her news about john mccain surprise you? >> not really. the i don't think president obama will get any republicans in the senate for this except the possible exception of olympia snowe who would be a good get, and maybe susan collins. the speech last night really wasn't about bipartisanship. it was about unifying the democratic party and getting the democratic party behind one plan. but as cece that very accurately, we still don't know where the president's line in the sand is when it come to the public option. this is possibly where bill

clinton could be a help. bill clinton understands health care, first of all elf understands the fiscal conservatives in the party. he understands the progressives in his party. and he can try to bring them together on this. >> roger simon, thanks very much. join us tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 eastern for more "hardball." "countdown with keith olebermann" starts right now. which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? the three-ring deather, birther shouter circus comes to the biggest tent of them all. >> you lie! >> congressman wilson, the chief clown of the circus, apologizes but not formally and for the wrong thing. >> he apologized quickly and without equivocation, and i'm appreciative of that. >> i wish he had not. >> i want to tell you this, that

it was spontaneous. >> so is most flatulence. the outburst may have been spontaneous but being wrong on the facts of section 246 was not, the enabling of, the celebration of the republican culture of being wrong at the top of your voice. tonight, a special comment. with opposition to reform now reduced to deather birther shouters, can the president now get the reform he outlined passed? he meets with democratic senators on the fringe and with nurses in the trenches. >> if there are real concerns about any aspect of my plan, let's address them. if there are real differences, let's resolve them. >> congressman anthony wiener on if this is enough and what's next. sarah palin mushes further into the wilderness. obama last night demonized victims of the war on terror when he pointed out the iraq war cost money. must have been the speech given by the voices inside her head. speaking of which -- >> executives don't do this because they're bad people. they do it because it's

profitable. >> he said tonight that insurance executives are bad people. >> worst person says another landslide winner. and a special comment. it isn't being a jerk that's the problem. it's being a jerk who's wrong on the facts. we must reclaim this land from the, yes, sir, from the morons. all that and more now on "countdown." good evening from our very temporary accommodations in new york. the memo having instructed those who were against health care reform to, quote, rock the boat early in the presentation, to yell out and challenge the statements, to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda, stand up and shout and sit back down. our fifth story on the "countdown." republican congressman joe wilson of south carolina apparently taking that advice, mixing in his long-standing anger management issues and mistaking a presidential joint

address to congress for a town hall meeting. later in this news hour, my special comment on congressman wilson's behavior and the true problems therein. we begin with the latest details. mr. wilson today apologizing, but only reluctantly and only under duress for having shouted at the president of the united states, "you lie." >> well, i last night heard from the leadership that they wanted me to contact the white house and state that my statements were inappropriate. i did. >> he has not yet resigned. having apologized only because somebody else wanted him to do so, no big leap then that congressman wilson still believes that president obama is lying. >> in particular, on the issue which i think is very important of whether the bills cover would include illegal aliens or not, indeed, the bills that are before congress would include illegal aliens.

and i think this is wrong. we need to be discussing issues specifically to help the american people. and that would not include illegal aliens. these are people -- i'm for immigration, legal immigration. i've been an immigration attorney. but people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services. >> now, just as last night, the facts not even close to backing up the bluster. according to the folks at the pulitzer prize-winning politicfact.com, the health care reform legislation being discussed in the house leaves in place the status quo on illegal immigration meaning no benefits specific to illegal immigrants would be provided under the plan, the white house reiterating today undocumented immigrants would not be allowed to buy into the public exchange. a broader point perhaps and more relevant, the president was not discussing two amendments in one bill, making its way through the house. he was outlining the entire plan as it will look once it reaches his desk. we rejoin congressman wilson

with possibly the most irrelevant sound bite of a long day. >> it was spontaneous. it was when he stated, as he did, about not covering illegal aliens when i knew he had those two amendments. and i say that respectfully. >> frankly, sir, you don't know what that latter word means, respect being something a colonel in the reserves would have for his commander, let alone his commander-in-chief. colonel joe wilson having those breached military protocol on top of everything else. republican congressman wilson's liberty to abandon conduct said the president did, in fact, lie in last night's speech. >> thirdly, he said illegal immigrants wouldn't get benefits. hr-3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens participating in and paying for coverage through the exchange, whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present or in the united states temporarily

or permanently. >> this is a health care reform debate. if you want to have an immigration reform debate, wait your turn and tell your side that what you are asking is that every person in this country who seeks medical attention in a hospital in the united states, including native-born republicans would have to present proof of birth every time. in other words, you want national identity cards to be checked and rechecked and -- faked? senator graham of south carolina taking a page out of the karl rove playbook by accusing the president, the president of having behaved in an undignified manner last night, criticizing the tone of his speech, not the crazy tone of a member of his own state's congressional delegation but the tone of the president. boss limbaugh, meanwhile, apparently upset that he was not consulted before the apology. >> i want to tell you something. one of the things that's irritated me all morning and last night was listening to republicans even after wilson has apologized, and i wish he

had not, that he's apologized and even after he's apologized members of his own party are all over television denigrating him. yeah, that was bad decorum. folks, can i tell you what's happening here? this is not -- this speech last night and this administration is not your average presidential administration. this is not a garden party. this is not a lecture at harvard or in any other university. we are in the process, we are in the midst of an administration that is trying to totally tear down the institutions and traditions that have made this country great. he is lying, president obama is, from the moment he opens his mouth until he ends the speech. >> elsewhere on your insane radio dial, sean hannity assuring his guest congressman wilson, that he was right and the democrats have treated president bush with just as much disrespect. >> at the end of the day, you're right and the president was wrong. >> the left is going to mobilize against you, and i say this because they have called the president every name in the book.

and they never apologized, by the way, congressman. do you think there's a double standard here? >> quite a double standard. >> yes, yes, there is. elected democrats never shouted lies at president bush during any of his speeches. if they'd done that, bush never would have finished his first speech. meantime, overnight, mr. wilson's very safe house seat in the high-rent tourist area of south carolina shifted to in play. congressman wilson's challenger in next year's midterm election rob miller today raising more than $500,000 and counting. that was some shout. the president, meantime, always eager to find common ground, today accepting congressman wilson's apology. >> i'm a big believer that we all make mistakes. he apologized quickly and without equivocation, and i'm appreciative of that. >> time now to call on our own lawrence o'donnell, contributor to "the huffington post," former chief of staff on the senate finance committee. good evening. >> great to be here. >> with everything that congressman wilson said today

that minority leader boehner said today, limbaugh, hannity, did the republicans take what was already an untenable position for them and manage somehow to succeed in making it worse? >> well, they've become very good at that. and following campaign manager limbaugh is to follow him off the cliff. he has advised the republicans into a series of losses here, 2006 congressional campaign, the presidential campaign this time around, congressional campaigns this time around. he is not the guy to listen to. you know, i didn't listen to rush today, keith, but here in washington i did listen to some african-american talk radio. there's another phenomenon out there which is in black america they are noticing that the very first president in the television age to be heckled, the first president to suffer a heckling in that situation is the first black president. that has not gone unnoticed. there is a very particular offense being taken in the

african-american community tonight. >> and by the way, thus the first congressman to heckle a president during the speech happens to be a member of the radicalized group the sons of confederate veterans. so if there was any implication there, in fact, there are two implications there. back to the meaning of this incident going forward. when the dixie chicks criticized president bush on stage at a concert in london, the right tried to blacklist them. the iraqi journalist who threw the shoe at the last president of the united states wound up probably appropriately, at least temporarily if not in terms of length, in jail. am i wrong in thinking that if a democrat in congress had, indeed, yelled "you lie" at president bush, lord knows there was opportunity to do that, the outcry here would have been almost indescribable? >> i don't think we'd hear from the congressman again. they'd get him shipped off to guantanamo overnight. i mean, yeah, keith, the reaction -- i mean, sean hannity -- it's just unimaginable to me what the reaction would be because the truth of the matter is guys like hannity do not believe in the

first amendment. they believe that the first amendment applies to them and there are things you must not and cannot say to republican presidents. so, yeah, it would be just hysterical reaction on their part, absolutely. >> and this was obviously the childish action during that speech that got the most attention last night. but was it actually the worst? there's now photographic evidence that the congressman of illinois, the "god will stop global warming, don't worry" guy, walked out on the speech. he didn't even have a democratic opponent for 2010. did he just buy himself one? >> he's in about as safe a district as it gets. southern illinois, one of two congressional districts that voted against president obama in illinois. his district went for mccain but with 54% of the vote. his last election he won at about 64% versus 33% for the democrats. so, he's got to lose 30 points in this exchange, and i don't think that's very likely for

just walking out. and if he does risk the wrath of his voters for that, i think he probably has time to make up a good excuse about how urgently he needed to get to that men's room before anybody else. >> he forgot his sign. last question about congressman wilson. did we reach a low-water mark -- or high-water mark in terms of the stupid out here? i'm just wondering if there is such a place, and if that wasn't it, i'm advised that bill o'reilly just referred to the lewin group study that the conservatives are so fond of talking about in regards to health care, referred to it as an independent research group owned by unitedhealth, which might actually be stupider than what wilson said last night. >> i'm going to stick with wilson for this news cycle, keith. >> okay. >> i spoke to a lawyer in south carolina today who went to law school with wilson, and "idiot" was the most generous word he could come up with in a string of words to describe his experience with wilson. he maintained to me that no one

in wilson's district has any right to be surprised by this. you could see this coming a long way off. >> are the democrats going to keep it alive or let this thing go after getting such milk out of it in one day? >> i think they've enjoyed what they've gotten. they don't really have their hearts in pushing this very far. >> mm-hmm. >> and so, actually, i think the republicans, as we know, would never let it go, but the democrats are probably done with it by tomorrow. >> lawrence o'donnell of nbc and "the huffington post," as always, thanks for your time. >> thanks, keith. >> the president clearly moved reform far ahead of where it stood perhaps in june or july despite the distraction of congressman wilson's outburst. the real point about that outburst is that had some democratic legislators stood up and yelled "liar" at president bush before the iraq war, they might have been run out of the country on a rail, but at least they would be right. if you're going to throw the last remnant of political decency in the oncoming bs train, at least have the facts on your side. therein lies the hidden real importance of congressman wilson -- he was wrong. and not only last night but back

when he self-identified as a deather and when he insisted that strom thurmond's love child, black love child, should have kept her identity to herself even after the senator's family had acknowledged his paternity. nothing has ever changed in this country without first somebody opening hi mouth, but not if he only opens it to put his foot in it. the republican culture glorying in being wrong. "special comment" ahead. plus a powerful decongestant. zyrtec-d® lets me breathe freer, so i can love the air™. (announcer) zyrtec-d®. behind the pharmacy counter. no prescription needed. (announcer) zyrtec-d®. behind the pharmacy counter. bottom. needs work. sorry, son. [ female announcer ] you can't pass inspection with pieces left behind. it's soft and more durable. so you're left with a more dependable clean. fewer pieces left behind. new charmin ultra strong. "what do you mean homeowners insurance doesn't cover floods?"

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in the same speech during which he rejected the lies of the right about health care, mr. obama also gave ground to the right on health care. and the question today is, did he move enough to get the right to move to him at all? democrats called the speech a game changer. new polling says it was a game changer for millions of americans. republicans, however, still playing the previous game. house republican whip eric cantor, who corrals republican votes in that chamber and sends texts during presidential addresses -- i am sitting on my butt -- was asked whether he, like the president, could make concessions in his party's positions on health care. as you will see, his response entailed turning into the big concession he wants democrats to make.

>> the president did show some support for what you just talked about, john mccain, senator john mccain, he did show support for that plan and he did make some concessions. you talk about the guarantees, but are you willing to some compromises of your own now to go back to the table? >> well, you know, robin, i think it's very important that we dismiss this notion of a government option. i think if we listen to the american people right now the fear surrounds this notion that somehow the government will replace the health care system that we know in this country. >> republican refusal to budge markedly out of step with the country, new polling suggesting today not only does the majority of this nation continue to support both mr. obama on health care generally and on the public option specifically, but a stunning number of americans who is watched the speech last night after a month of republican sound and fury about health care changed their minds, perhaps in part explaining why senate majority leader reid today called the speech a game

changer, predicting or hoping for a passage of a senate bill before thanksgiving. before the speech, 53% of those who watched supported mr. obama's plan to reform health care. after the speech, 67% of those who watched, two-thirds, supported mr. obama's plan to reform health care. an even more seismic shift occurred among those who had opposed mr. obama's health care before watching the shift. that number fell from 36% to 29%, meaning the speech led 1 out of 5 opponents to drop their opposition. and republican members of congress were exempt from this shift among real americans may have something to do with the fact they get money from insurance and big pharma, while real americans, of course, send money to insurance and big pharma and their health care is more perilous. mr. obama emphasized today, telling nurses at the white house, that the numbers have gotten worse in less than 24 hours since his speech last night. >> over the last 12 months, it's estimated that the ranks of the uninsured have swelled by nearly 6 million people.

that's 17,000 men and women every single day. and we know that during this period of time the number of adults who get their coverage at the workplace has dropped by 8 million people. >> with us now, congressman anthony wiener, democrat of new york, member of energy and commerce committee. thanks for your time and patience with your logistics tonight. >> thanks. good to be here. >> if this was a game changer, what should we expect from the game that we would not have expected at this time yesterday? >> well, we spent a lot of time over the month of august explaining to the american people why we needed to do anything. a lot of americans said, you know what, got health care, i think everything's fine, why do we have to tamper with this? the president gave the kind of speech only presidents can give, laying out why this is a chronic problem that needs to be addressed by all americans. i think he also did something else that makes things more complicated. he referred to his plan, and i think that there still needs to be more meat put on the bones of that plan, but more and more americans, after watching the president last night, are

saying, okay, we have a problem that we need to solve, let's get to it. that frankly has been a real weakness on the republican side of the aisle. they're not conceding anything needs to be fixed. that's why they haven't offered many ideas of their own. >> where are you about the amount of meat on these bones given your strong public support, consistent public support for the public option. >> the speech is kind of a rorschach test for members of congress. i heard him say is argument in favor to the public option is profound. he said we needed competition, choice, and a way to drive down prices. only by having a public option do you do that. i've compromised here. i believe in a single-payer plan as you know. i think we should have medicare for all americans. it's simple and it works. but if we're not going to have that, we need some government option that allows people, if they're being mistreated by their insurance company, the company charges too much to go to. if the president walks away from that, i think he'll walk away from enough votes to pass this bill. there are still questions that need to be answered, but i think

we're on a path that at least the american people withstand, all the shouting notwithstanding, we have to address this problem. >> congressional republicans have not budged on this in any respect. few of them applauded at key moments. few of them from the senate did, to their great credit, i think. but in that respect, with their reaction, would you still consider the speech ultimately successful? >> well, i don't think we're going to win over many republican members of the house or senate. i think they're almost a lost cause. republican members of the population as a whole i think are much more fertile ground for us getting support for this. i think most americans, even the most ardent congressional district in the country, realizes they're paying too much for health insurance, too many of their neighbors don't have it, and realize we'll be bankrupt if we don't solve this problem. if we're waiting for eric cantor to come around and be helpful in this, i think we'll be waiting around for a very long time. >> i was wondering last night as i heard that speech, the key thing that people who were not hugely involved taken away, the idea it would be illegal to deny

insurance based on pre-existing conditions. this would seem, i would think, to the average person who may or may not know what party president obama belongs to, to be something akin to coming from heaven. >> no doubt about it. for all the criticisms of a government inform run health plan, we never heard of the term pre-existing condition when it was just medicare and medicaid. that's right. we need to help reform insurance. i hear these surveys of people who like their insurance companies. most like them until they have to get in touch with their insurance companies and get care from them. but the republicans have to realize they'll get left by the side of the road here. some of the concerns we democrats have is we're in charge of governing the house and the senate and now the white house. we've got to have initiatives that work. if we're going to be waiting for that cooling saucer of democracy, the united states senate, to act, we're going to be waiting a very long time. >> speaking of things and acting and influences, ultimately, did it help last night progressives in any event who would prefer to

go purely democratic on this bill and drop the pretense you'll get a huge republican crossover on this? did it help to have a republican making a fool of himself the way congressman wilson did last night? >> having a republican member of congress making a fool of himself is not an uncommon occurrence in the house of representatives, but in all seriousness, it is a distraction, but it shows something else. all of the shouting and yelling that went on during the month of august actually seemed to get into the republican body politic, and that's problematic. we should stop the shouting, but we should start solving problems. republicans aren't good at that either. >> exactly right on your observation of it getting into the body politic. thanks. >> thank you. sarah palin has attacked the president for, quote, demonizing the victims of 9/11 by last night mentioning the price of the war in iraq. meanwhile, two racists and one constitutional illiterate with one stone. lou dobbs defends glenn beck on first amendment grounds.

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it turns out lou dobbs does not under the first amendment and sean hannity does not understand the english language. from the party that has done everything to 9/11 but turn it into a sitcom comes sarah palin's claim that last night the president demonized the victims of terror. in a "special comment," the real transgression of congressman "wrong way" wilson. not so much the instability as lionization of stupidity. closer to home.

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last night, while president obama made new policy, former governor sarah palin made a brand-new pretzel. in our third story on the "countdown," palin was reacting to a comment the president made about the cost of the wars in iraq and afghanistan and, through her particular pretzel of logic, she actually claimed he was demonizing the victims of 9/11. palin, of death panel infamy, again used her facebook page as war room, quoting, "finally president obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the war on terror. as we approach the anniversary of the attacks and honor those who have died that day and since in the war on terror in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag." the president actually said -- >> first of all, complaints

about the cost of wars began years before this president took office. those complaints emanated from both parties and have never been intended to impugn the troops much less the victims of the 9/11 attacks, and 9/11 has proved suitable for people like mrs. palin nothing to do with the war in iraq. she's managed not only to connect those unconnectable dots but used 9/11 to attack the president. chris hayes, good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> hard to ask a serious question about this kind of logic because it is so incredibly off. >> it is. >> just another dog whistle, just another, you know, dart thrown against the wall in the attempt to delegitimize the president? >> well, yes, i mean, it is. but it's also sort of part of -- it's real bedrock kind of right-wing rhetoric. they've been saying this for 40, 50 years.

i mean, the notion is anytime anyone tries to question the size of the american national security state, the amount of wars we're involved in, the amount of bases we have overseas, the expenditures related thereto, then they are impugning the truth and i guess in this case in a particularly creative flourish, impugning the victims of 9/11. and that's something that the right wing has been basically trying to argue for four decades. >> when -- there are presumably at least a few republicans left who might want to actually use policy points to differ with the president, to argue against his proposals. does a palin do a disservice to herself and to those republicans when she goes this far out on the logical limb? >> well, yes. i mean, yes in the sense of she does a disservice to the, you know, the state of vibrant opposition that can actually substantively contribute to the american process of self-governance. but i don't think in the political short term she does because, again, the audience for

all this is a relatively small and very ideologically extreme portion of the populace that's going to be, you know, basically voting in the iowa caucuses in 2012. and that is a sort of sample of public opinion. that's just incredibly different from the american people as a whole. i think everything -- if you kind of refract it through that lens, it may make perfectly fine short-term political sense to do that grandstanding. >> and senator mccain, who got a shoutout from the president last night and full credit for one of the ideas the president adopted for his reform and his vice presidential candidate, miss palin, now complaining that the president disproved the death panel crap, limbaugh now applauding palin saying you call us out, we're going to hit back twice as hard. we touched on this previously tonight, but isn't that part of the dynamic here to be as loud as possible and truth and accuracy are really irrelevant to the equation? >> yeah, absolutely.

i mean, look, at this point, it is destroy this bill, specifically, destroy health reform specifically, destroy the president broadly politically by any means necessary. i mean, i think that, you know, i actually witnessed very interestingly when the original kind of murmurs of the death panel came up, some conservatives were, like, oh, that's a little too far. next thing you know chuck grassley is repeating it at town halls because it invented itself in people's consciousness and thought, hey, if this weapon is lying around, i might as well use it. right? so i don't think the rhetorical posture the right has adopted toward health care reform or the president has anything to do with the substance of the therms they're making. and there are substantive charges one could make. that's what's so crazy. you can attack the actual bills that you're presented from a conservative perspective. there's perfectly legitimate conservative attacks to be made. they're just not actually being made.

>> yeah, but that takes work. chris hayes of "the nation," as always, great. thanks, chris. >> thank you, keith. mrs. palin is in the forefront of this culture of superstition and assumption and wrong-headedness, but it's not a field that's hers alone. when rachel joins you at the top of the hour, a look at the right-wing nuts supporting representative wilson. that's a good idea. you may think you know how much fox noise twists the news, but you have never seen it done as starkly as sean hannity did it last night.

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funny how we get one president, sunup, sundown, gets called out in an appropriate venue of "the new york times" and a man named joe wilson. another president who tells the truth even when it costs him, getting heckled in the chamber of the house of representatives by a habitually hot headed congressman also named joe wilson. the problem lies in the fact that congressman wilson and not president obama was wrong last night.

"special comment" ahead. first dobbs, beck, hannity, cluster fox and friends vie for worst persons. against acid attack. only crest pro-health toothpastes protect all these areas dentists check most. new crest pro-health enamel shield. but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. i'm bill kurtis, and i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate.

with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. the outbreak of congressman joe wilson. right sound, right volume, wrong reason. incivility? he's a republican town haller. he's a republican. it's the wrongness that matters. but first, tonight's "worst persons of the world." lou dobbs's craziness seems to be impacted by the phases of the moon. now defending glenn beck's description of the president as

racist with a deep-seated hatred of white people because van jones four years ago founded the organization whose protests has now stripped 62 advertisers from beck's show. i didn't hear howard dean get excited about that. trampling all over the first amendment trying to coerce just because he had the guts to say what he meant. you know, there's a shortage of that. that ought to be encouraging. >> never mind the inanity of defending beck's right to say something psychotic or outrageous, never mind the public's right to protest a broadcaster. how long have you lived in this country? you still don't know there is no first amendment right protecting you from backlash against viewers or responses except backlash from the government? i promise we'll get lou up to speed on broadcasting and how it has nothing to do with the first amendment, and soon. he's only been doing this 39 years. the runners-up, the host of cluster fox and friends right into the republican talking points this morning in defense

of the congressman shoutout. and wow, are those talking points thin on the ground. yes! plenty. most of it by you charlatans. you left out dixie chicks. you started a blacklist of a musical group for being critical of the president while they were in london. wilson interrupted this president in his audition as a real man of genius. somebody had done that to bush, you meat puppets would have called for human sacrifice. but our winner, sean hannity. this one defies belief. as hannity apparently defies medication. >> without competition, the price of insurance goes up and quality goes down. and it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest.

by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage. and by jacking up rates. i'm sure insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people. they do it because it's profitable. >> insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people. they do it because it's profitable. so, hannity's response? i hope you're sitting down. >> when he said tonight that insurance executives are bad people, it took me back because it was so harsh and i think unfair, but it's part of their polling. >> took me aback. aback is the word, sean. obama says insurance executives aren't bad people. hannity says he said insurance executives are bad people. if you ever need a fox news bald-faced lie for argument or debate, use this one. wednesday, september 9th, 2009. >> insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people. they do it because it's profitable. >> he said tonight that insurance executives are bad people.

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finally tonight, as promised, a special comment about the shout of "you lie" during the presidential address to the joint session of congress last night on the matter of health care reform. the 43rd president of the united states lied the nation into war, lied 4,343 of his fellow citizens to death in that war, lied about upholding the constitution and lied about weapons of mass destruction. he lied about how he reacted to al qaeda before 9/11 and then he lied about how he reacted to al qaeda after 9/11. he lied about getting bin laden and not getting him, lied about nation building in iraq, lied about the appearance of new buildings in the nation of iraq

and lied about embassy buildings in nations like iraq. mobile weapons labs in them and trailers with cuban prostitutes in them. he and his administration lied by the counting of one nonprofit group 532 times just about the links between al qaeda and iraq that did not exist. only 28 of those were by that president, but he made up for that by lying 231 times about wmd. and yet not once did a democratic elected official shout out during one of his speeches and call him a liar. even when the president was george w. bush, even when he was assailed from sidelines like my own, even when lies came down so thick the nation needed a hat, he was still the president and if he did not earn any respect, the office he held demanded respect. moreover, that president and his congressional tools like congressman addison, graves, joe wilson of south carolina insisted not just unquestioned respect for the office. they wanted unanimous lock step compliance with the man.

and when the blasphemy of near respectful criticism somehow came anyway, say, by that or those built on that by the real joe wilson, lord help he who might have made the slightest factual error in that criticism. congressman wilson and his masters and the flying monkeys of right-wing media would pursue the erroneous critics to the end of their careers, firing hot allegations of moral confusion. and incompetence of the unbelievers. and that is the line congressman wilson crossed last night when he shouted "you lie" at this president of the united states. not the respect line. the stupid line. hey, mr. wilson! this evening i let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. you heard what he said last night as a nation caved in on you and your own party's leadership coerced you into saying something. while i disagree with the president's statements, my comments were regrettable and i

extend severe apology to the president for the lack of civility. is that what you think this is about? you are a republican trying to delegitimize the elected president of united states. that's all you do. and that's all you've got. of course you let your emotion get the best of you. in a figure of $435,296 in campaign donations from the health sector to you and your pac, of course your emotions would take over when your gravy train was threatened. it isn't about inappropriate and regrettable, sir. your comments were inappropriate and regrettable and wrong. you got up in front of the world, embarrassed your district, embarrassed your state, embarrassed your party, embarrassed your nation, shouted at the president like he was a referee at a ball game and you were a drunk in the stands, and you were wrong! house bill 3200 specifically says, sir, in language made precise and binding in section

246 under the heading, quote, no federal payment for undocumented aliens. look, congressman, all capital letters for the benefit of the factually challenged. nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the united states. you got it wrong. there is no ambiguity, sir, no disagreement. the bill says those here illegally will not be covered. and whether through stupidity or willful attempt to mislead the gullible, you decided to spend whatever credibility remained to you on a position in which you are utterly, inarguably, and in a manner obvious to newborns and the more sophisticated of farm animals, wrong. you apologized for your lack of civility. when are you going to apologize for your lack of being right? wrong-way wilson. whatever it is, it appears to be congenital. wrong-way wilson just wrote an op-ed on august 27th for the

columbia, south carolina, newspaper "the state" about the nonexistent death panels that he and mrs. palin saw in their dreams or something. those who have stood up and shown up to have their voices heard have already made a difference in this debate. perhaps henceforth, mr. wilson, you should soft pedal the "have their voices heard" part. citizens have discovered and brought to light numerous aspects of the health care overhaul that are deeply troubling. these include the end of life counseling program, which has been correctly highlighted by former alaska governor sarah palin as a program which could lead to seniors being encouraged to seek less care in order to protect the government's bottom line. perhaps henceforth mr. wilson should soft pedal the palin paranoia since he caught enough of it when last night he made himself look like an uninformed 8-year-old screaming at an adult. americans want and deserve this honest debate. perhaps henceforth mr. wilson should remember that the word "honest" in that is as important as the word "debate."

the latter without the former is better known as political tourette's syndrome. the evidence that wrong-way wilson and reality are strangers goes back further than last night. when congressman rob filner said the u.s. helped saddam hussein's chemical and biological weapons programs, wilson went nuts on c-span, worse, accused him of hatred of america and insisted you shouldn't say that and you should retract it and you know it is not true. it was true. it had been confirmed by the commerce department in 1994. wrong-way wilson was wrong. a year later, when it was asserted that senator strom thurmond from wrong-way's home state had fathered a daughter with a black woman, mr. wilson called the assertion a, quote, smear on the image of senator thurmond. this was after his family acknowledged not just paternity but the fact the senator had maintained a secret relationship with his daughter and provided her money for decades. after this was admitted. congressman wilson considered

references to it a smear and said thurmond's daughter should have kept it to herself. coincidence, of course, wrong-way, that it would be you who would be affirmed as a smear. then it would be you, again, who in the middle of a festival of blind racial rage dressed up as a health care debate. it would be you who shout out "you lie" at a biracial president of the united states as he addressed congress and just a coincidence that it would be you who is a member of the radicalized insurrection glorifying group of the sons of confederate veterans. but back to this incident. you have swallowed some of the koolaid that you mix up for those damn fools who believe you, congressman. you sounded as pathetic as those poor souls stampeded by corporate funding from the insurance and health care industries who shout out nonsense at the demonstrations of willful stupidity that have been mislabelled as town halls, places where a citizen's life is

reduced to acting out that ridiculous maxim, "if you're going to be wrong, be wrong at the top of your voice." but congressman, you're not supposed to be a town hall panicker. you're not supposed to be a rube defending the efficacy of the snake oil. you are a congressman and still, you were wrong at the top of your voice. town halls, death panels, a multiracial president accused of hating half his own ancestry, neuroses about communist artwork, the idea that fascism and socialism are not mutually exclusive, grassroots protests paid for by lobbies and corporations. scared seniors, terrified enough to turn to insurance companies for protection against reformers who want to increase their coverage and cut their rates. birthers, deathers, the voices in bachmann's head, the rebuttal to the president of the united states given by a guy who thought he could become a lord by paying a couple of english conmen. now to top off this pile of

stupidity, congressman wrong-way wilson who, went a president publicly and ostentatiously gave credit for part of his health care reform proposal to the very republican he swamped in the election last year, wrong-way wilson followed that bipartisan gesture by shouting "you lie" as soon as he heard the truth. it is this week evident that the greatest threat to this nation is not terrorism nor the economy nor h1n1 nor even bad health care. it is rank, willful, stupidity. when did we come to extol stupidity ahead of information and rely on voodoo, superstition, and prejudice ahead of education? how many republicans believe death panels and brownies and elves? when did he start to listen to, to elect the impregnably dense? i was almost too fearful of using that word because of the prospect governor palin would go after me the way she went after david letterman. the time has come to rise up and take this country back, to again make it safe for people who actually completed the seventh grade.