The House Will Be In Order... Maybe

The U.S. House voted 240-179 along party lines to formally admonish Republican congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina for his "You lie!" outburst during President Obama's health care speech last week.

But it should have been 434-0.

Many of your congressmen and women had a chance to stand for something more than ideology and partisanship, and they blew it. Miserably. At least now we know the truth: rules of decorum only apply when they're convenient. Rep. Wilson had plenty of opportunities to criticize, cajole and condemn before and after the speech, but he just couldn't wait. At least he didn't throw a shoe.

Booing has been around for ages, just like applause. The line, however, should stop there. We expect better from leaders who address each other on the House floor as "The Distinguished Gentleman." Maybe they just don't want that responsibility, as Rep. Barney Frank indicated: "I think it's bad precedent to put us in charge of deciding whether people act like jerks. I don't have time to monitor everyone's civility."

I also saw Rep. Frank telling Rachel Maddow that heckling is fair game in the British House of Commons: "Oh, I don't think it's a big deal. Look, I think free speech is (garbled), you know, heckling is a tradition, obviously, in the British Parliament. They even have mics that come down to hear the heckles." Somebody please remind the congressman where he's working.

Then I saw Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shrug it off in a Twitter message: "Voted against official disapproval of Congressman Wilson. What he did was unacceptable but POTUS accepted apology. Time to move on."

Yes, it's time to move on, but after taking a stand for character. Congressman Wilson did his part. I hoped Congress would do theirs. But there I go again, expecting too much of our leaders, even on the basics.

The House Rules Committee just released an updated guide for criticizing the president, as reported by Politico:

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:
• call the president a “liar.”
• call the president a “hypocrite.”
• describe the president’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the president has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the president as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the president’s part.”

I read these guidelines and recall that scene in the summer-camp movie Meatballs where Bill Murray's character subtly tears up a list of rules he has just been handed and deposits them in a trash can.

Your House voted to slap Rep. Joe Wilson on the wrist with a nail file. I'll try not to laugh the next time I hear the words "The Distinguished Gentleman" on C-SPAN. And I won't mind a bit if President Obama and future presidents handle hecklers the same way Ronald Reagan did in 1980, as his Presidential campaign was drawing to a close:

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"Aw, shut up!"