'You lie!' further erodes discourse

WASHINGTON — Screams of "Socialism!" Conservative talk show hosts peddling debunked "death panels." Placards likening Barack Obama to Hitler. And now, to the president's face: "You lie!" A breach of civility? Absolutely. A strategic political mistake? Maybe.

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's personal attack on Obama and jeering from other GOP lawmakers as the president spoke to Congress escalated the opposition's outrage machine that over the summer framed the health care debate and knocked the White House back on its heels.

The rare lack of decorum on the House floor as Obama addressed lawmakers could provide him with a much-needed opening to retake control of the national conversation over a health care overhaul by turning off Americans to his critics' acerbic claims.

Or, people could dismiss derisive laughter and head-shaking from Republicans and embrace the opposition's broader argument that Obama's prescription for the ailing health care system would expand the government's reach into people's lives.

At the very least, Wednesday night marked the further erosion of long deteriorating discourse in a country where political opponents increasingly try to out-yell each other, vocal extremes of each political party shape the debate and a 24/7 media focused on ratings amplifies the tit for tat while latching onto phrases that fan the flames.

"What we've seen all summer was the worst of debate," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on political communication. "It does suggest a decline."

That's not lost on voters.

"We are becoming more adversarial and more shrill," says Jeffrey Howell of Cincinnati, 43. "We don't have discourse anymore."

It's become so bad that Donna Schwinghammer of Washington, Pa., 54, has stopped listening — to both sides. "I'm tired of all of it. There's so much fingerpointing," she says.

The latest low point in the nation's political dialogue came Wednesday when the vitriol of the summer's town-hall style events spilled into the Capitol as Obama addressed a joint session of Congress, saying: "The time for bickering is over ... Now is the season for action."

Some Republicans applauded and gave standing ovations through the speech. But, at times, GOP critics also shouted "not true" and "shame." There were boos, hisses and grumbles. One Republican, Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, left the chamber, his spokesman says in frustration, even before the president had finished.

But it was Wilson's boorish outburst that froze Republicans in their seats.