While the Obama-loving media jumped all over Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) for shouting "You lie" during the President's healthcare address Wednesday, few so-called journalists bothered to report what made the Congressman and others present so angry.
On Sunday's "Meet the Press," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did.
After host David Gregory asked Gingrich whether Obama was acting like a president or a partisan Wednesday evening, the Speaker marvelously responded (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 1:00):
I can go through the president's speech and find a lot of things that I like. Then I go to the House Democratic bill and I don't find a single one of those things reflected in the legislation. Now, they, they literally had voted down efforts to make sure that health insurance only went to people who are legally in the United States. So they would have to go back and have very significant changes, which I think would split the Democratic caucus. And I think part of the reason you saw some, some real anger about the speech is he kept describing things that had been explicitly not put in the bill on the House side, and the House bill has no resemblance to the president's speech.
For the record, this is what Obama said Wednesday evening before Wilson's outburst:
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
As such, what the Obama-loving media have been ignoring is that the anger on display Wednesday evening was a result of Republicans being called liars by a President who was himself misrepresenting the facts concerning what's in the current healthcare bill.
Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. Speaker.
That so-called journalists still don't understand it is indeed mind boggling.