Another Village Idiot Blows His Cover

Until yesterday, I'd never heard of Congressman Joe Wilson from South Carolina. Not to be confused with the former Ambassador (Joseph C. Wilson) who called George W. Bush and his administration of war-mongers dishonest in the infamous Niger yellow-cake uranium debacle that preceded the Iraq War. No, this Joe was a good ole' southern boy who fears God, loves apple pie, and hates niggers! Although the first two items I cannot verify, the third can be. You see, this Mr. Wilson is a member of a right wing group called 'Sons of Confederate Veterans,' a group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that is organized by radical neo-Confederates who favor secession and defend slavery as a benign institution. The group's leader, another self-appointed man of the cloth, one Rev. Eric Dean has attacked "racial interbreeding" as ungodly and described slavery as biblically sanctioned.

Having the full moral and intellectual vacuousness of his ill construed convictions behind him, Mr. Wilson, no doubt exhausted by the extravagances of the Obama administration, yelled out at the president, "Liar!" Facts, reason, civility, and general manners be damned, this village idiot needed to be heard. George Allen, former Governor and Senator from Virginia, had already used the racially tinged slur Macaca to insult another "colored" fellow with dubious American citizenship. What else could Mr. Wilson say under such blistering pressure?

I don't have a problem with politicians being called liars even by other politicians. However, if you are so disposed to calling out someone as deceitful, then at least you should know the definition of hypocrisy. The Republican party, that grand coalition of bigots, southern white dunces, flat-world believing anti-intellectuals, statists, and crony-corporatists, has been confirmed as issuing no less than 935 demonstrable falsehoods about the Iraq war. And yes Virginia in the reality based world we call these lies. According to the Centre for Public Integrity, they determined that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanised public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretences.” The study identifies 935 false statements that were issued by the White House in the two years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Leading the pack, President Bush made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 false statements about Iraq’s connections with Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Colin Powell followed close behind with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction and 10 about Al Qaeda links.

So when the lies of George W. Bush yielded a two-trillion dollar war lacking an exit strategy and with thousands of Americans dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, millions of Iraqi displaced and pushed out of their own country, and not a single milligram of WMDs found, Mr. Wilson had nothing to publicly say; not a single word.