Boycott South Carolina until Wilson's gone

Poor Lord Boustany. The cardiovascular surgeon and congressman from Lafayette, La., was supposed to have his big moment in the spotlight last evening by delivering the Republican opposition speech to President Obama’s address before Congress. Instead Boustany, who once tried to buy a fake title as an English Lord, was upstaged by a GOP colleague from South Carolina who decided to scream in those hallowed halls of Congress that the President was a liar.

Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst came when Obama said that illegal immigrants would not benefit from the proposed health care reform, despite hysteria spread by the president’s opposition. Wilson quickly sent a private apology to the president after the speech via chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, an apology accepted by Obama.

The outburst was “spontaneous,” Wilson told the media. But it is difficult to believe the South Carolinian was sincere since he later said he was called by GOP leadership and asked to apologize. Wilson later bragged to reporters that he had only received one “negative” call and a number of positive ones from constituents regarding his actions.

It likewise is hard to believe that Wilson’s actions were spontaneous. Here is a 62-year-old attorney who served almost 30 years as an Army staff judge advocate in the Army National Guard, who has been in politics for almost 30 years and in Congress since 2001. Yet a man with such a public profile for such a long time all of a sudden yells at the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress and before millions on television, calling the president a liar?

As a personal note, I was in a situation once that was not in millions of the public’s eyes as Wilson’s moment, but had I lost control like the congressman I surely would have made the news, been fired from my job and probably vilified even more than Wilson.

I once covered an event along with four other reporters which was a rather intimate setting with President George W. Bush and his family. Afterwards, the president gave an impromptu “press conference” with the media who had been waiting outside. This was during the run-up to the Iraq war and the answers to the questions I heard from Bush sounded, to me, like total bulls**t.

No real news was made that day and as such occasions are usually that way, I was nothing more than a poorly-dressed stenographer. My story was essentially what Bush said that day. Certainly nothing slanted.

But I think back to that day and what would have happened had I acted on my impulses to shout out at George W. that he was “full of s**t.” I have to bet that it would have made some news. Probably because of the day it was, it might have even led the news. I am certain that I would have been fired, and rightly so. And being a reporter, I would have been hated more than normal by all the nut wings who hate reporters anyway and who try to find a link between the liberals and the media. I am no longer employed full-time by the media, so be it.

I have done some pretty impulsive things in my life. But even I had the self-control that day to not make a total ass out of myself. So why couldn’t Joe Wilson control himself? Methinks he knew what he was doing.

My wish is that his congressional colleagues will censure him. I also want his fellow South Carolinians to pressure his kind and their idiot governor to leave government. I suggest that those offended by Wilson’s actions — be they from South Carolina or elsewhere — boycott anything South Carolina.

Thinking of vacationing in Charleston or their beaches? Don’t go. Instead, go to the state’s official tourism site www.discoversouthcarolina.com and tell them: “I tell you what. You urge your fellow South Carolinians to call on Joe Wilson to resign and I will promote tourism in S.C., but until then, I will ask everyone I know and anyone I don’t to stay away from your state.”

South Carolina has a lot of popular colleges and universities. I bet some might even be attracted to scholars and athletes. But would you want to go to college or send your kids to school in a state that elects morons like Joe Wilson or Gov. Mark Sanford to office? Thinking about The Citadel, Clemson, Furman, South Carolina State, University of South Carolina, Webster or other great S.C. schools? Tell those schools you aren’t going, or your children won’t go until Joe Wilson goes.

If you see the “Made in South Carolina” label, find the company and tell them, sorry, no can do until you make Joe Wilson leave office.

My call for a boycott probably won’t do much. But if I influence just one person I will have considered my efforts a success.

Joe Wilson must go. The jerk.