Wilsons You Lie Outburst Belies A Bland South Carolina Man
The framed photo depicts a blonde Wilson as a preschooler in a horse-drawn wagon with one arm draped over a black child that Dusenbury, 84, referred to as her son-in-laws “playmate,” the child of a household employee.
“You see?” she said, three hours before Wilson was formally admonished Sept. 15 by his House colleagues for shouting “You lie” at President Barack Obama during a joint session to Congress on Sept. 9. “We said Joe started it.”
Started what? “Integrating,” Dusenbury said, as she displayed the photo of Wilson “with the little colored boy.”
Wilsons two words set off a national debate over whether racism was at the root of some criticism of the first black U.S. president. The controversy also could cement voter cynicism about race and politics, and undermine progress symbolized by Obamas election, said Todd Shaw, an expert on race and politics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
Former President Jimmy Carter stoked the controversy Sept. 15, when he told a town-hall audience he believed Wilsons comments were “based on racism.”
Name-Calling
At a news conference in his district Sept. 18, Wilson called himself the “number-one target of Washington Democrats” and dismissed Carters remarks as “name-calling.” He said that if he could do it over again, he would “absolutely not” shout “you lie” at the president.
Critics have seized on past controversies involving Wilson, including his defense of the Confederate flag and his criticism of a black woman who disclosed she was illegitimate daughter of former South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, a onetime segregationist. These incidents have been cited as evidence that the congressmans outburst was an expression of whites lingering frustration with a black mans ascent to the presidency.
Wilsons supporters conjure the image of a Southern gentleman devoted to patriotism and his Eagle Scout children, a man who immediately apologized for a rare breach of decorum that had nothing to do with race.
At stake in the fight over these conflicting biographies is more than the outcome of the 2010 election for South Carolinas 2nd congressional district.
Not an Accident
Wilsons relative anonymity in the House, even after eight years there, may be allowing allies and detractors alike to define his personality however they wish. “Before this outburst it would be difficult to find people outside the 2nd District who really knew who he was,” said Robert Oldendick, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina.
An advocate of small government, low taxes and a strong military, Wilson in 2005 co-founded the House Victory in Iraq Caucus and was rated by the National Journal in 2006 as voting with conservatives more than 90 percent of the time on economic and social issues.
Thurmond Mold
“He is not a legislator in the lawmaking sense,” said Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina. “Hes an affable guy who loves being a congressman, cut out of the Strom Thurmond mold in the sense that he believes in taking care of the people back home, not writing bold, dramatic, groundbreaking legislation.”
Alan Stedman, a roommate of Wilsons at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, described his Sigma Nu fraternity brother as “a kind of bland character. Theres never anything wild about him.” Stedman called Wilsons shouting at Obama “astonishing.”
Born in 1947, Addison Graves “Joe” Wilson was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where his father worked for the Esso gas company, as had his father before him, according to Dusenbury. Wilson was educated in Charlestons public schools and was a popular kid who recruited friends to join the Young Republicans club, said Jeanne Gerhardt, a high-school classmate.
In 1965, his senior year, Wilson was president of his high- school class, Gerhardt said. “He did not smoke. I dont know that he drank,” she said. “We were not wild hippies. It was Charleston.”