The photo above is of US House Rep. Joe Wilson in Iraq with the then-top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus. Wilson, a Republican, has now been in the news cycle for nearly two weeks straight.
But before we get to that, let's stick around in Iraq for a second.
Tuesday Muntadhar al-Zeidi, Iraqi journalist, was released from prison. He had been sentenced to prison for his actions on December 14th. That's when Bully Boy Bush and Nouri al-Maliki met up. signed the Status Of Forces Agreement and the Strategic Framework Agreement and held a press conference. It was at the press conference that Muntadhar threw two shoes at Bush.
"This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss you dog!" Muntadhar cried as he hurled the first shoe. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!" he yelled as he threw the second one.
Now we, like most people in the world, found it amusing. We didn't post the video here but most websites on the left did. We saw it as a check on authority, as recognition that no leader was above criticism.
What others saw it as, you'd have to ask them.
But it was all over the net.
And in the last week and a half, Joe Wilson has been all over the net.
During Barack Obama's bad speech on making insurance mandatory to enrich the insurance companies, Joe Wilson stood and exclaimed, "You lie!"
You'd think people would applaud that regardless of whether they believed Barack was in fact lying.
You'd think the fact that someone -- anyone -- would yell "lie" at the president of the United States would be seen as a good thing.
You'd be wrong.
Even those who knew they should be applauding it turned coward like Kenny-boy Silverstein at Harper's -- too gutless to stand strong.
At a time when Congress still can't pass a health care plan, Nancy Pelosi and company spent a day last week debating and then deciding to pass 'rules' for the House. The 'rules' now bar any representative from calling Barack a liar. Just Barack, mind you. The Democrats in the House weren't interested in barring any president from being called a liar, just Barack.
It's disgraceful and it's disgusting.
And apparently it requires people screaming "Racism!" falsely in order to justify their attacks on Wilson. The same people, repeating, who applauded or enjoyed the shoes tossed at Bush.
We enjoyed the shoes. We applauded it.
We also applaud Joe Wilson.
Because in the United States, we don't have a king.
Because in the United States, we're supposed to have free speech.
In Iraq, free speech (and a possible threat -- some might have seen shoes tossed as a threat -- we didn't) resulted in the despotic system imprisoning Muntadhar. The US could have sent a message about freedom following Wilson's cry of "You lie!" Instead, the House decided to 'outlaw' the conduct.
