The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to reprimand Republican Joe Wilson for shouting “You lie!” at US President Barack Obama during the president’s speech to Congress last week.
While Obama himself accepted the South Carolina representative’s apology for the outburst, the House voted 240-179, largely along party lines, to approve a symbolic motion of disapproval of Wilson’s actions.
The president’s Democratic allies condemned Wilson’s refusal to apologize to the House for what they described as a shameful breach of decorum that required formal action to uphold the chamber’s rules.
“This resolution is not about the substance of an issue but about the conduct that we expect of one another,” Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said.
Republicans mocked the debate and vote as a pointless distraction from difficult questions before the US Congress, such as the feuding over Obama’s push to remake US health care and worries over the war in Afghanistan.
“This is nothing more than a partisan stunt aimed at trying to divert people’s attention from the real issue that the American people want to talk [about] and that’s talk about health care,” Republican Minority Leader John Boehner said.
But a handful of Republicans said Wilson — little known nationally before his red-faced outburst during Obama’s speech to a rare joint session of the US Congress — should have apologized to his colleagues.
“Absent that the House had to police itself through a resolution of disapproval, which I supported,” said Representative Bob Inglis, one of only seven Republicans who voted for the resolution.
Just 12 Democrats voted against the measure.
Wilson took to the floor of the chamber to criticize what he said was a “partisan” move.
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