I'm seeing a lot of outrage, real or feigned, about Representative Joe Wilson yelling "You lie!" during President Obama's speech. I don't think it was a nice thing to say, because the claim Obama was making was probably true. False accusations of lying aren't cool. I don't know if it's outrageous enough to warrant the amount of hubbub it generated.

What would be equally outrageous, if not more so, would be if a president did lie during a speech to Congress and nobody in Congress objected. That's what happened on several occasions between 2002 and 2008. Some of the same people now objecting to Wilson's false accusation are the very same people who didn't say anything when George W. Bush lied about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction and being involved with al Qaeda.

There seems to be a current of thought lately that speaking directly and bluntly to the president, as Joe Wilson did to Obama and as hundreds of Democratic representatives and senators should have done to Bush, is unacceptable behavior, that showing extreme deference to the president is somehow good for our country.

Fuck that. This is America. We purposefully did away with kings when we made this country. The president is a citizen, like the rest of us. He or she is someone we choose to do a job. If he lies, we should say he lied. If he gets a few blow jobs from an intern, we should say he got a few blow jobs from an intern. Pussyfooting around the truth is bad for a republic.

Joe Wilson was wrong, but the people criticizing him are doing so for the wrong reasons. If you're going to call someone a liar, get your facts straight first. But if your facts are straight, call him a liar. If you don't, you're enabling his lies.

Labels: bush, congress, liars, lies, lying, obama, wilson