Joe Wilson: The verb

by Mark Silva and updated

Since Joe Wilson Joe-Wilsoned President Barack Obama, who has publicly accepted the Joe Wilson apology for the Joe-Wilsoning that he got from Joe Wilson during the presidential address to a joint session of Congress, where Joe Wilson called Obama a liar, talk has turned to how the Democrats are going to Joe Wilson Joe Wilson.

Democratic House leaders have threatened a "resolution of disapproval" today or tomorrow - think of it as a parliamentary Joe-Wilsoning - unless Joe Wilson formally apologizes on the House floor for his Joe-Wilsoning of Obama. But Joe Wilson says he has apologized once, to the White House directly, and that's it. Obama accepted Joe Wilson's apology for the Joe-Wilsoning. People make mistakes, the president said.

Several House leaders and many rank-and-file Democrats are pressing a reluctant House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who made her own displeasure at the Joe-Wilsoning that Obama got from the floor of her House during last week's speech known to all with a sort of body-language Joe-Wilsoning of the offending congressman, to take formal action, with that formal Joe-Wilsoning of Joe Wilson.

"There was a violation of the rules of the House," Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said of last week's Joe-Wilsoning. "It needs to be resolved by an apology or a resolution."

"I am not going to apologize again,'' Joe Wilson said, in an appearance on FOX News Sunday. "I have apologized to the president. I believe that is sufficient.... I apologized to the president on Wednesday night. I was advised then that -- thank you, now let's get on to a civil discussion of the issues."

He also explained what prompted his Joe-Wilsoning, calling the president out for insisting that illegal immigrants will not benefit from the health-care initiative that Democrats are advancing: "I am on committee.... Education and Labor. I know the amendments that were on Ways and Means -- at Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce that the Democrats voted down for citizenship verification.

"So I knew what he said was not true,'' Wilson said. "I read the bill. I read all 1,000 pages. I believe he was misstating the facts."

"That's not true,'' Obama told the congressman from the dais of the House, delivering his own sort of gentlemanly Joe-Wilsoning of Joe Wilson.

Indeed, some say that Obama was guilty of his own Joe-Wilsoning -- with a thinly veiled Joe-Wilsoning of Sarah Palin and company in his vehement denial that the health-care legislation contains the "death panels'' that Republican Palin and others are warning seniors about.

"Some people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost,'' the president told Congress and a television-viewing public. "The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.''

Palin, for her part, suggested on her Facebook page, 870,000 supporters and counting, that the president had dodged the question.

"In his speech the president directly responded to concerns I've raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters,'' Palin wrote. "He called these concerns "bogus," "irresponsible," and "a lie" -- so much for civility. After all the name-calling, though, what he did not do is respond to the arguments we've made, arguments even some of his own supporters have agreed have merit.''

There it is: "Name-calling.'' Palin figures she was Joe-Wilsoned.

As far as the continuing controversy over the original Joe-Wilsoning goes, Joe Wilson complains that people are attempting to change the subject about a bad health-care bill.

""My view is it's politics. This is playing politics,'' Wilson said on FOX News Sunday. "This is exactly what the American people do not want to see, do not want to hear...this is just a way to divert attention from a bill that would cost 1.6 million jobs, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. It's a diversion from people looking at the bill and the concerns about this bill."

The president himself was asked if Joe Wilson should be rebuked.

" Well, see, this is part of what happens,'' Obama told CBS News' Steve Kroft, in an interview aired last night on 60 Minutes. "I mean, it becomes a big circus instead of us focusing on health care.

"You know, this is a story that people will run with for a week,'' Obama said. " In the meantime, we stopped having a serious debate about how are we going to make sure that insurance companies who don't treat their customers right are checked. That's the conversation I want to have.''

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said today:

"Rep. Wilson has apologized to the president, and the president accepted his apology. Last Thursday, Speaker Pelosi said that she believed it was time to move on and discuss health care. I couldn't agree more, and that's why I plan to vote 'no' on this resolution. Instead of pursuing this type of petty partisanship, we should be working together to lower costs and expand access to affordable, high-quality health coverage on behalf of the American people."

When the Joe-Wilsoning is finished in the House, they just might get to health-care reform.

(Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is pictured above on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, photo by Freddie Lee / FOX News via AP. Wilson is pictured calling Obama a liar during the president's address to Congress, photo by Melina Mara / The Washington Post, via AP. And Tina Fey is pictured backstage after accepting her Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her turn as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, a show on which Fey had done some considerable comic Joe Wilsoning of Palin. The lower photo of Joe Wilson Joe-Wilsoning Obama is by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.)