A JUST HEARING EVEN FOR THE UNRULY AND INDECOROUS

12 September 2009
A JUST HEARING EVEN FOR THE UNRULY AND INDECOROUS
The media have handled Joe Wilson’s breach of decorum ineptly. On the first day, the PBS Newshour made no distinction between the breach of decorum and the misrepresentation that Wilson’s charge of lying amounted to; or for apologizing about the breach and apologizing about the misrepresentation. The President, quick to dampen down the outrage and characteristically conciliatory, did not help matters by ignoring the issue about an apology on the latter point. A clear distinction between the two issues emerged on Olberman’s talk show the next day. Olberman made it clear that Wilson had not apologized about the misrepresentation; and that there was no basis in the President’s plan for thinking that it was intended to have insurance cover illegal immigrants. Olberman went further; he cited a passage from one of the bills that specifically forbade such coverage. Unfortunately, that is not, logically, the end of the matter. For which of the several bills before Congress did the forbidding? And what were the two amendments that Wilson cited as the basis for his belief that illegal immigrants were to be covered? There may well be nothing to them, or at least nothing to show that the President supports them. However, the point should have been followed up and clarified.