Obama heckled by GOP during speech: 'You lie!'
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer 57 mins ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090910/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_heckling

WASHINGTON – In an extraordinary breach of congressional decorum, a Republican lawmaker shouted "You lie" at President Barack Obama during his speech to Congress Wednesday.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., tried to call Obama to apologize in person, but ended up speaking to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

The contrite congressman, "expressed his apologies" to Emanuel, not the president at whom he had shouted a few hours earlier, Wilson's office said.

By that time, Wilson's House Web site had crashed and he had taken a brutal beating on his Twitter page for breaching protocol and good manners during a presidential speech to a joint session of Congress.

"This evening I let my emotions get the best of me," Wilson said in a statement. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."

Wilson's outburst came after Obama said that extending health care to all Americans who seek it would not mean insuring illegal immigrants.

"You lie!" Wilson shouted from his seat on the Republican side of the chamber.

Republicans froze, with several looking in Wilson's direction.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed a fierce frown at him; first lady Michelle Obama pursed her lips and shook her head from side to side. Vice President Joe Biden looked down and shook his head, too.

Obama, meanwhile, looked toward the outburst and replied, "That's not true," and went on with his speech.

Right away, Wilson seemed to sense that he had fouled up. Wilson appeared to consult his Blackberry for much of the rest of Obama's speech. He shook his head defiantly after several of the president's statements. When Obama finished, Wilson bolted from the chamber.

Wilson's wasn't the only interruption during Obama's speech, but it was the most notable.

Obama's Republican rival from last year's presidential race for the White House defended the president.

Wilson's behavior was "totally disrespectful," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CNN. "There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologize for it immediately."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said "I have never in my 29 years heard an outburst of that nature with reference to a president of the United States speaking as a guest of the House and Senate."

"It was a shameful act," he told WTOP radio.
Hoyer said he'll work with GOP lawmakers to decide whether to punish Wilson.

I noticed it did not affect Obama at all, but noticed Pelosi it did a bit,but she recovered.
we all get caught up emotionally,if your an emotional..
I think Obama is emotional on the right things,but is laid back person on those out bursts..just my views~

Obama glared but continued , Pelosi was hysterical the glue holding her smile shattered and she was furious..Poor ole Joe just kept scratching his face as he did most of the speech, thank god he didn't pick his nose ...

SSC wrote:Obama glared but continued , Pelosi was hysterical the glue holding her smile shattered and she was furious..Poor ole Joe just kept scratching his face as he did most of the speech, thank god he didn't pick his nose ...

I sincerely hope I am totally wrong,but I sense that Obama is gonna take a hard line on this. The "true believers" will applaude that as they did such suggestions in his speech. But the reality will be a knock down,drag out fight in Congress. This "all or nothing" will squelch real healthcare reform and result in more years of status quo. One unavoidable truth remains unsaid by all sides: Adding people to the covered list cannot possibly be paid for by any conceivable savings. There is NO free ride in this anywhere.

meemoon wrote: I sincerely hope I am totally wrong,but I sense that Obama is gonna take a hard line on this. The "true believers" will applaude that as they did such suggestions in his speech. But the reality will be a knock down,drag out fight in Congress. This "all or nothing" will squelch real healthcare reform and result in more years of status quo. One unavoidable truth remains unsaid by all sides: Adding people to the covered list cannot possibly be paid for by any conceivable savings. There is NO free ride in this anywhere.

mark u live there so u would see this in ur news more than most, but it is being reported, wilson will run against an x marine, i think and since he said that u lie, that wilsons next opponent has had a big influx of money since wed nite, have u seen anything on this,like local news ?

According to CNN last night after the outburst 200,000.00 was raised by Wilsons opponent, but today on an up swing the YOU LIE phrase is taking off like wildfire, shirts, buttons anything that it can be written on. Wilsons web site crashed from responds flooding it.. I know he apologized but the fact is Obama did lie. HR3200 in provision 46 I think doesn't have an option to check elgibility of those applying for fed funds such as food stamps and welfare it was voted down by the Dems in control. So maybe Wilson isn't to far off on the statement Obama is lying ..

Joe Wilson of South Carolina said Obama lied, but he didn't
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/09/joe-wilson/joe-wilson-south-carolina-said-obama-lied-he-didnt/

We suspect it's rare that the president gets heckled during a speech to a joint session of Congress, but Rep. Joe Wilson didn't hold back.

"You lie!" shouted the South Carolina Republican. This was in response to President Barack Obama's statements on illegal immigrants.

"There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants," Obama said. "This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

So who's right here? Wilson or Obama?

Incidentally, Wilson apologized for the outburst after the speech, but said he still disagreed with Obama's statement.

We've been monitoring claims about health care reform and illegal immigrants for some time now. Most notably, a chain e-mail claimed that page 50 of the House bill gave free health care to illegal immigrants. That page didn't say that. Rather, it included a generic nondiscrimination clause that said insurers may not discriminate with regard to "personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services." So we rated the chain e-mail's claim Pants on Fire.

We read all 1,000-plus pages of the health care bill and were struck by the fact that it is largely silent on health care for illegal immigrants. Keep in mind that experts estimated there were 6.8 million uninsured illegal immigrants in the United States in 2007, out of a total of 11.9 million illegal immigrants. Right now, there are laws on the books that require hospitals to treat severely ill people who arrive at the hospital, regardless of immigration status, and we didn't see anything that would change those laws, either.

Most illegal immigrants are also now excluded from Medicaid, the government-run health care for the poor. We didn't see anything that would change that.

One place where the bill does mention immigration status is for "affordability credits." These are tax credits for people of modest means need to buy health insurance. The credits would help them buy insurance on a national health insurance exchange. The bill specifically says that people in the United States illegally are not eligible for tax credits, on page 132, section 242.

Still, given all that, we have heard from people who said that other aspects of reform could benefit illegal immigrants.

One of the most detailed responses was from the anti-immigration group Federation for American Immigration Reform, called FAIR. You can read their statement on the matter on their Web site.

Primarily, they argue that illegal immigrants would be permitted to purchase insurance on the national health insurance exchange because the bill does not include a mechanism for verifying citizenship. So illegal immigrants would have the chance to purchase insurance in the public option, a government-run health care plan that would offer basic coverage at a low price.

FAIR also argues for more robust verification measures for the affordability credit and making sure that illegal immigrant parents won't be able to receive coverage if their citizen children are eligible.

FAIR has a point that illegal immigrants would likely be able to buy insurance on the national health insurance exchange. We don't see anything in the bills that would hinder that. A Congressional Research Service report issued Aug. 25, 2009, confirmed our observation. The House bill "does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens participating in the Exchange—whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently," the report said.

But it's worth pointing out that illegal immigrants participating in the exchange would be paying for their insurance like everyone else. That's similar to the current system -- we're not aware of any particular restrictions that stop illegal immigrants from buying private insurance now. Under health care reform, illegal immigrants would be able to buy private insurance or the public option.

When we look at all of this evidence, it seems that health reform leaves in place the status quo on illegal immigration, and certainly does not provide any new benefits particularly for illegal immigrants. We hope to look at this issue more in the days ahead, because some hospitals are particularly concerned about recouping their costs for treating illegal immigrants, and we're curious to know more about that problem and how it might or might not be solved by reform.

The best argument that we find that health reform would help illegal immigrants is that some might be able to purchase the public option -- if it passes, and it might not -- on the new health insurance exchange. They would purchase that at full cost. Obama's said "the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," which Wilson said was a "lie." Actually, Obama can make a pretty thorough case that reform doesn't apply to those here illegally. We don't find the public option argument enough to make the case that Obama "lied." We rate Wilson's statement False.

"Primarily, they argue that illegal immigrants would be permitted to purchase insurance on the national health insurance exchange because the bill does not include a mechanism for verifying citizenship. So illegal immigrants would have the chance to purchase insurance in the public option, a government-run health care plan that would offer basic coverage at a low price." /// It can't be any clearer. Illegals can and will access publicly funded low cost insurance under HR 3200. When the Repubs submitted an amendment to specifically deny that access, the Dems voted it down. (They also voted down an amendment specifically denying funds for abortions) This is parsing. As the recent ACORN tapes reveal,there are active, partially or wholly publicly funded organizations who will do their best to make low cost,publicly supported insurance available to whomever they can slip through the loopholes. That is not conservative nastiness and fear; it is being done every day. I actually didn't see the speech,but read the entire 8 page transcript. It was full of,well...lies. A lie is a lie.Making funds available through tax credits and removing blocks to that is providing funds. Simple.

"mark u live there so u would see this in ur news more than most, but it is being reported, wilson will run against an x marine, i think and since he said that u lie, that wilsons next opponent has had a big influx of money since wed nite, have u seen anything on this,like local news ?" // Ya caught me. I could care less about local politics. I voted for Clyburn because he has done a good job bringing in business and fixing the roads/bridges. He was also slated to go big time in the Demo party,which he did. That can only help us at the trough, eh? I've never heard of Wilson,but be assured that in a state with a 40% black constituency, anti Obama comments are NOT welcome.