Congressman Joe Wilson may have apologized for his outburst at Wednesday Presidential Address to Congress, but that hasn’t stopped him from exploiting it to advance his career and his obsession with illegal immigration:
(CNN) — Less than a day after Rep. Joe Wilson formally apologized to President Obama over his “you lie” outburst, a campaign aide confirms to CNN the South Carolina Republican has raised “more than $200,000″ in the wake of the now-infamous moment.
News of that cash haul comes after Wilson directly asked in a Web video for campaign cash to fend off attacks from political opponents and said he’s standing by his opposition to Democratic efforts at health care reform.
“On these issues, I will not be muzzled, I will speak up and speak loudly against this risky plan,” Wilson said in a YouTube video released Thursday evening. “The supporters of the government takeover of health care and the liberals who want to give health care to illegals are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan.”
The congressman disbursed the video via Twitter and asked his followers to “please watch and pass on.”
Here’s the video:
Wilson’s move is motivated in no small part, no doubt, by the fact that his likely Democratic opponent has raised over $ 400,000 since the incident and by the fact that in 2008 he beat this same opponent by 25,956 votes, a substantial drop after having beat his 2006 opponent by 51,721 votes.
And, Wilson does seem to be getting the attention of Senate negotiators, who are moving to restrict their version of the reform plan from applying to illegal immigrants.
So, it looks like we’ll have Joe Wilson to kick around for a little while longer.
Wilson is notorious for supporting flying the Confederate flag on Georgia state government property. The Confederacy was an act of treason against America, and no patriotic American condones it, much less supports it.
If the right really is about patriotism, they will disown Wilson for supporting treason.