September 11, 2009: Republican Political Strategist Says GOP Lawmaker Who Shouted at Obama Should Be Voted out of Office

Mark McKinnon. [Source: Houston Chronicle]Mark McKinnon, a Republican political strategist who worked on both the George W. Bush and John McCain presidential campaigns, says Republican Joe Wilson (R-SC), who shouted at President Obama during his recent speech (see September 9, 2009), should pay by being voted out of office. “Make Joe Wilson pay,” McKinnon writes for the online news source The Daily Beast. “And by pay, I mean beat his sorry _ss at the polls and send him to the private sector. That is the only way to change the political discourse in America today. Because as long as louts like Joe Wilson can spout off and call the president a liar and get rewarded with re-election, then louts will continue to spout off. And we [the Republican Party] will continue to claw our way to the very bottom of the political swamp.” McKinnon says the Republican Party will never rebuild itself and become a serious contender for national leadership until it “get[s] rid of the partisans like Joe Wilson.” He finds Wilson’s shout reprehensible, both because of the blatant disrespect it showed to the president and to Congress and because of his error—Wilson wrongly asserts that Obama is lying about the Democrats’ health care reform not funding free health care for illegal immigrants. McKinnon says Wilson’s apology to Obama (see September 9-10, 2009) lacks “class,” and writes: “He made it clear he was saying ‘sorry’ only because he’d been forced to by the Republican House leadership: ‘Well, I, uh, last night I heard from the leadership that they wanted me to contact the White House and, uh, say that, uh, my statements, uh, were inappropriate. I did.’ Apologies should extract some moral or material cost.… Now, proving he has no real remorse or character, Wilson has created a YouTube video and is trying to raise money off his transgression.” McKinnon concludes: “There’s only one way we’re going to change our political climate and ensure we establish some respect in our discourse. And that is to show there is a real price to pay for being a disrespectful partisan idiot.” [Daily Beast, 9/11/2009]