[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21674-21675]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            DANGEROUS WORDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this body today has voted by a majority to 
disapprove of Joe Wilson's comment. It is important to always take 
things in context. And, in reviewing the context, we have to notice 
that we had a President of the United States for whom we pray as 
Christians. We're supposed to do that--and we do. And we respect the 
office. And he was not happy with the way things were going with regard 
to his health care proposal.
  The American people seemed to have made pretty clear through August 
this was not something they wanted. So the President basically demanded 
to come into this House. Well, he can't come unless he's invited--an 
invited guest. So an invitation was issued because he wanted to come 
speak. And he did.
  Now there are rules about proper decorum in here, whether you're an 
invited guest or whether you are a Member of Congress. But, as Members, 
this is where our voters voted to send us. So we're supposed to be 
here.
  The President came in. And the truth is, I really had mixed emotions 
because I knew that on Monday the President had taken a shot and 
actually used the L word. He had said that--actually, his words were, 
``You've heard the lies. I've got a question for all those folks. What 
are you going to do? What's your answer? What's your solution? And, you 
know, what? They don't have one.''
  Well, it was not appropriate to say that we were lying about the 
proposal when we have taken the only proposal that we have, H.R. 3200, 
and read from it, and then we're told we're lying about the content and 
we have no solutions.
  Well, I would never say the President was lying when he said no 
solutions because that would infer that he knew that what he said was 
not true. Whoever put that line in his teleprompter should know that 
it's not true, but I won't attach that to the President.
  But you look at the speech. We heard the speech. He said, ``Instead 
of honest debate, we've seen scare tactics.'' We're dishonest because 
we take the thousand-page bill and read from it, and that's dishonest? 
That's scare tactics?
  We're told by the President in our House that we're trying to score 
short-term political points, even if it robs the country. Now we're 
robbing the country, trying to score short-term points.
  He goes on. That's not enough to come into somebody else's house as 
an invited guest, and he talks about all the misinformation. So we're 
spreading misinformation, he says.
  He goes on, the very next paragraph, he's talking about our bogus 
claims spread by those who want to kill. Now we're robbers and killers. 
And then he laps at the prominent politicians for being cynical and 
irresponsible. And, yes, immediately before Joe Wilson spoke, he used 
the L word, said, It's a lie, plain and simple.
  Those are dangerous words to be saying things like that and to come 
in and be poisoning this well. He had poisoned the American people, 
talking about lies on Monday. He comes in here and talked about a lie 
here. He goes on to say we're making wild claims. These were his words. 
And then talks about our demagoguery and our distortion, talks about 
our tall tales.
  Then, a surprise. He says, When facts and reason are thrown 
overboard, we can no longer even engage in a civil

[[Page 21675]]

conversation. He talks about acrimony. And that's the context of Joe 
Wilson's comments.
  That's no way to act, Mr. Speaker, when you're invited into somebody 
else's house and you come in and use all these words to slander them. 
That wasn't being very nice.

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