Republican Rep.Joe Wilson shouted "Lie! You lie," at President Barack Obama during Wednesday's address to a joint session of Congress, earning repudiations from his own party and from Democrats.
Wilson took exception to a passage in Obama's speech on health care in which the president said illegal immigrants would not get health insurance coverage under the overhaul.
"There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," Obama said.
Wilson answered the comment with his outburst, loud enough to be picked up on television and in such an unusually disruptive fashion as to merit reprimands from across the political spectrum.
House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, a fellow South Carolinian, said Wilson's heckling was more damaging to South Carolina's reputation than the exploits of Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who admitted to having an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman.
"I thought he [the governor] had embarrassed us as much as we could be embarrassed. But to have a congressman use the floor of the House of Representatives in a joint session to insult the president the way Joe Wilson did is as embarrassing as anything anyone could think of," Clyburn said. "Our state can do without this."
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and a fellow veteran, denounced the comment as "totally disrespectful and called on Wilson to "apologize immediately" during a post-speech interview on CNN.
A few hours later, he issued a written statement, saying he had called White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and apologized.
"I let my emotions get the best of me," Wilson said. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."
The timing could not have been worse: Wilson's son, Alan Wilson, launched a bid Tuesday for state attorney general.
And Wilson himself is facing the possibility of a credible rematch of his narrow 2008 victory over Marine Corps veteran and Democrat Rob Miller, which Wilson won with 53.7 percent of the vote.
Miller received a flood of online donations in the hour after the speech, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officials, with one estimate pegging the number of contributions at more than 200.
A Democratic operative with experience in South Carolina said Wilson's treatment of the commander in chief could cost him among the district's sizable military population.
"You have a lot of military folks who, even when they don't agree with the president politically, have a lot of respect for the institution itself," the operative said. "Before the speech, I would have said Joe Wilson had that."
Clyburn said South Carolina voters may have the opportunity to redress their grievances with Wilson at the polls and elsewhere.
"I would hope that the people of South Carolina will show him, in as many as ways as they possibly can, how insulting this is and how embarrassing this is," Clyburn said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to comment on the matter, according to a spokesman, but Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said he could not remember a similar incident during his nearly three decades in Congress. "It is certainly something that should never happen," Hoyer added.
Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, declined to comment through a spokesman.
Members of Congress typically observe a standard of decorum during State of the Union addresses and other presidential addresses to nationally televised audiences.
On occasion, quiet disapproval rises to vocal outburst. In 1999, for example, then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., admonished House members to observe standards of respect for the president some Republicans had treated President Bill Clinton in a manner viewed as disrespectful the previous year.
Kathleen Hunter, Jennifer Scholtes, Edward Epstein and Scott Ferrell contributed to this story.
