Joe Wilson's Free Speech

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.

Wilson's website has crashed and looks like this:

This site is down for maintenance. Please check back again soon.

Here is Wikipedia's talk page from this evening.

It certainly is different than a heckler at a political rally. The man is a US Congressman! This shout is of historic importance. Literally calling the President of the US a liar during a joint session of Congress is behavior that is, to my knowledge, completely without precedent. Anybody who argues that this event is insignificant is either being disingenuous or has completely deluded himself.RickDesper (talk) 01:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)Rick

Wilson's website has since come up, and he describes his military background as follows.

"Throughout his life, Joe has also had a tremendous passion to serve his country as a member of the United States Armed Forces. After serving in the United States Army Reserves from 1972-1975, he also served in the South Carolina Army National Guard. In the summer of 2003, Joe retired as a Colonel, having served as a Staff Judge Advocate assigned to the 218th Mechanized Infantry Brigade. At the time, he was the only active Guard member serving in Congress.

Joe (has) four sons, all of whom serve in the U.S. military, and the proud grandparents of two boys and one girl. Alan, his oldest son, is a Major in the Army National Guard who proudly served for a year in Iraq; Addison is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a physician who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq; Julian is a Captain in the South Carolina Army National Guard who served on a peacekeeping tour in Egypt; and Hunter is enrolled in Army ROTC at Clemson University and is a Cadet in the South Carolina Army National Guard. Their four sons are all Eagle Scouts."

I wonder what his children think of their father who calls his commander in chief a liar? I wonder what Joe thinks of his governor Mark Sanford's truth?

I think Maureen Dowd nails what really is going on here: "Joe Wilson’s outburst in Congress revealed one thing: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it."