WILSON'S SLIP IS A WINDOW INTO THE GOP'S VIEW OF OBAMA

I couldn't help but wonder out loud today what Republican Joe Wilson's "You Lie" slip REALLY meant last night. The South Carolina delegate shouted this after Obama claimed that illegal immigrants would not be covered by a public option should one be available in a new health care plan.

It reminded me of my own steaming anger I've had at times at those I've worked with on various projects in Downtown circles since moving to NYC before Whole Foods and Starbucks made it look like Bergen County. Anger and frustration build up under the surface to a point where a tipping point moment happens and without the ability to control emotions, an improper statement is made. Improper in it's timing, yet somehow revealing in it's emotion. The problem with Wilson's apology is that he's been TOO apologetic this morning, and like Obama, has lacked sufficient detail as to what the true basis of his and the GOP's disdain for Obama and his governing style is. 

Wilson was perhaps unintentionally bold in shouting over the President. He's intentionally been a coward since. He sat there like many politicans last night, expecting Obama to risk even more political capital by further detailing a plan that still needs work from the House and Senate. Wilson stood up and got into the fray. NOW Wilson is afraid to take on the risk of his own political capital and make a full and complete case for the GOP as to what about the core of Obama's presidency bothers them. It's too bad. Maybe the GOP missed an accidental moment at finding a face and a voice for some reasonable opposition.

We all saw House members waving their health care plans in response to Obama's suggestion that if the opposition has ideas, show them to him. This falls under the same category in one respect. People need to stop waving papers and shouting out from the balcony and start laying out problems and solutions on the table. In full view. For all of us to see.

I won't rush to judgement on Wilson's "moment." We've all had them: Bottled up and ready to burst,  little issues build to a boiling point where no matter the venue or event, an uncontrollable and unavoidable outburst takes place. I will ask Wilson and those waving papers to help us see what is happening behind closed doors by explaining where the TRUE anger stems from. It can't be from the health care issue alone. 

Maybe it's more than  just Obama's viewpoint regarding policy. Maybe Washington vets are still seething at how the new kid took the country by storm. Maybe the anger and the dropping poll numbers the President has been receiving this Summer have now taken on a life of their own. Whatever the case may be, Wilson , by apologizing without offering what led him to perhaps become THE window into the mindset of  the entire GOP, has seemingly slipped away. An opportunity lost, with the same congenial, middle of the road behavior that naysayers come down on Obama for.

above: Joe Wilson going apeshit last night during the President's address to a Joint Congress