If you watched President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress last night or have seen the news since, you no doubt heard or heard about Representative Joe Wilson’s inappropriate outburst during the speech. Wilson screamed out “You lie!” when the President stated unequivocally that his proposed health care reform plan would not provide coverage to illegal aliens:
On insistence of the Republican leadership, Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, today apologized for his outburst and his apology was graciously accepted by President Obama.
I was intrigued to see at the New York Times and at TPM this morning , that our own Peter Roskam was seated directly to Wilson’s left during the speech.
It does not appear that they are seated alphabetically, or by state delegation, because they would not fall together. They aren’t seated by Committee because Wilson is not on Ways and Means. They aren’t particularly close in seniority – Wilson was seated in 2001, Roskam in 2007. So either they were seated that way by accident, or they chose to sit together.
I don’t know whether Wilson and Roskam are close. If they were, I would not be surprised. The two have very similar voting records – 93% out of 2318 roll call votes since 2007 were identical according to Open Congress’ nifty new comparison tool as of this writing. Both Roskam and Wilson have been working to defeat President Obama’s efforts to provide healthcare coverage to all Americans. And Roskam has not been afraid to play the illegal alien card himself when he thought it could work to his political advantage.
It would be interesting to hear Peter Roskam’s thoughts on Wilson’s outburst, the nature of his relationship with Joe Wilson, and whether he admonished Wilson himself on his behavior, having been seated right next to him.
And what’s that angry scowl about on Roskam’s face?
Addendum: I just heard Peter Roskam quoted on WBEZ a saying he “cringed” at Wilson’s remarks. But the photo’s don’t seem to show Roskam reacting negatively to Wilson. Rather his attention and his scowl seem to be focused elsewhere. Notably, WBEZ did not quote Roskam as saying he chastised his colleague. Presumably, he did not.
2nd Addendum: The Daily Herald now reports that Roskam was “surprised” and “disappointed” by Wilson’s outburst. The camera does not show that. If Roskam had been surprised we would see him reacting to Wilson at this moment. Instead his expression, IMHO, seems to be a reaction to the President on the podium. Birds of a feather, I believe.
3rd Addendum: TPM has further background on Joe Wilson including his attacks on Sen. Strom Thurmond’s illegitimate daughter (Wilson is a former Thurmond page) and on Rep. Bob Filner who had the temerity to state that the U.S. had armed Saddam Hussein. Its a little frightening, though not particularly surprising, that Peter Roskam would hang out with this guy. Perhaps Peter would feel more at home if he joined the the South Carolina delegation. The climate is nicer (at least for the moment) and South Carolina is a better fit for a 19th century kind of guy like Roskam.
Last Addendum: It looks like, as of this writing, Miller has raised over $750,000 in campaign contributions since Wilson’s outburst on Wednesday night.
