The Shout Heard 'Round the Country

In yesterday's blog post, we had expected that the Republican response to President Obama's Health Care reform speech to the Joint Session of Congress, given by Rep. Boustany of Louisiana would be lackluster at best. And it was.

We knew we could count on the GOP.

In his speech, Boustany called for bipartisanship and affordable health care for all Americans . . . wait, isn't that what President Obama also called for in his speech? It was apparent to this viewer that Boustany's speech was written for him well before the President's address and clearly did not align with the President's main arguments. You can watch Boustany's brief speech here:

What's more, Boustany repeated the mis-informing statement that the President wished to "replace" Americans' insurance with government run insurance. We're pretty sure President Obama did not say that, in fact he offered the guarantee that no American would be forced to change doctors or coverage if they chose not to.

We were totally wrong about one thing, however. We had expected Boustany's weak speech to be the main point of conversation for news pundits post-speech.

We were so wrong.

Enter, Joe Wilson, Republican from South Carolina. (Republicans have been doing that State proud lately.)

Rep. Wilson was one of the many GOP-ers who grumbled during the President's speech, but that's to be expected in a partisan debate. But during President Obama's discussion of illegal immigrants and health care, Rep. Wilson had the nerve to call the President a liar.

Rep. Wilson, if you remember, also got into trouble for saying that the late Strom Thurmond's (R-SC) daughter was "shameful."

GOP leadership demanded that Rep. Wilson apologize to the White House, an apology that was accepted by President Obama.

Even Rep. Wilson's outburst could not overshadow the power of the President's speech, which has been described as a "turning point." His commitment to a strong public option and stating that he would not waste time with those who would seek to derail and delay reform for purely political reasons were met with great acclaim by Democrats and supporters of comprehensive reform.

Even Republican lawmakers could not help but appreciate the President's commitment to reform of malpractice laws and his praise of former rival John McCain's ideas on health care reform.

With renewed energy, we Democrats can be assured that President Obama will fight for meaningful reform in the coming weeks. His commitment to us stands firm:

"We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it's hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test. Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character."