I’ve gotta say, trying to start a petition is like throwing a party.  You hope for a good outcome but risk the humiliation of inviting everyone and no one attending.  (My brother is the famous RedState contributor Caleb Howe if that will make me more popular!)

Well, at the risk of sitting alone with a party hat on, here goes:

Nothing used to anger me more than when Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or Howard Dean or Hillary Clinton or Al Gore or any number of other high level Democrats would call Bush a liar.  It would boil my blood and make me think twice about being friends with anyone that would vote for them.

But my anger was always related to my belief that they were knowingly trying to confuse Americans at a time of war in order to appease the liberal base that provided so much of their funding and power.  It was NEVER because I thought they shouldn’t be allowed to do it.

Little did I know that apparently there actually is a rule in the Congress barring Senators or Congressmen from calling the President a liar or saying that he’s lied.  Only recently was this revelation…er…revealed when the racist, nazi Rep. Joe Wilson from my state of South Carolina dared to accuse President Obama of something that only Republicans are allowed to be accused of: Lying.

Now the Democratic leadership is demanding a 3rd apology from Rep. Wilson to be coerced expressed on the House floor for breaking this rule.  In fact they are threatening punishment if he refuses.

Beyond the fact that we ALL know that Rep. Wilson is awesome for doing what he did, and that we can’t allow the Democrats to send this message of fear through the ranks nor score the political points of getting him to apologize there is a very important reason that he must retaliate NOW and it’s bigger than his career.  It’s the debate itself that is in jeopardy.

The public is so easily confused on some things it seems and if the democrats get this apology, it will be used to shift the balance of people who believe that the Health Care proposals are something to fear to believing that the Republicans have simply been using scare tactics that aren’t true.

I can hear them all now on their various tv spots.  ”Well, this is just another scare tactic from the Republican party similar to the smear that Joe Wilson recently apologized for….” or “…even their own party alarmists are having to admit that these accusations aren’t true as seen for example when Joe Wilson apologized on the floor of the House for distorting the facts of this plan…”.

We can’t allow Joe to do this and I think I know a way out.  He and other REAL Republican House members need offer a counter-proposal: Joe Wilson will apologize saying the President lied if the various Senators and Congressman will apologize for calling President Bush (hell, go back to Reagan too if you want) a liar or that he lied.  It may sound tit-for-tat or “i’m rubber your glueish” but it has a great result.  It will NEVER happen and while it’s being debated a lot of the old tapes showing the Democrats being hypocrites and politically distasteful will have a new reason for being aired right at the time that they most need to look like they are trustworthy.  And in the end, a rule is a rule is a rule.  If Joe Wilson broke the rule then so did they.  I think that at least Fox News could latch on to the story if he does this and that’s like 50% of news viewers so that’s good enough.

We as a movement or a party or whatever you want to call us have got to stop being on the defense.  We have got to take the fight to them every time.  Any time they hit us we have to hit back twice as hard.  Every accusation must become an opportunity for us to make them look foolish.  To call them out.

Reply to this thread if you agree.  If anyone wants to create an actual petition page I would be more than happy to pay for the URL.  This is important and must be dealt with before Tuesday which is the deadline that the Democrats have given Wilson to apologize.

We must get support and get this petition sent to Mr. Wilson so he knows that we support him.  I don’t live in his district in SC (I live in John Spratt’s district- yuck) but he is MY representative now as far as I’m concerned.  Let’s let him know that just not apologizing and accepting punishment isn’t good enough.  We need to take the fight to them and take control of this conversation.

Benjamin Howe

/signed