Fish for Friday

For public-relations conscious football, it is, to say the least, a bad situation: three players knocked out of a game in the first quarter with concussions and two more out later from vicious hits, alleged bounties paid to players for knocking out the other team's stars, an entire coaching staff suspended for the rest of the season and all of next year.

Ominous truculence

A striking feature of the presidential address to the Congress last night was the truculent faces of a good many of the Republicans in the chamber. Gail Collins seems to have thought so too:

It’s always possible that the Republicans will realize that their virulent opposition is not doing the country any good, and at least be obstructionist in a more cheerful way. Although Wednesday night, when the TV cameras caught the House minority leader, John Boehner, he looked as though he had just swallowed a cough drop. [writing in today's New York Times column, "So Much for Civility"]

She also identifies who that was who called out that the President was lying:

Joe Wilson, a member of Congress from South Carolina...loudly called the president a liar.
    This was when Obama said illegal immigrants would not be covered by health care reform. It seemed like a pretty tame remark for so much disrespect, given all the recent uproar over the president’s alleged ability to brainwash elementary school students.
    You might have expected Wilson to hold his tongue and wait to see if Obama would yell “Marxism is a good thing!” and send the commerce committee racing off to give workers control over the means of production.

It would seem that Mr. Obama won't be getting the kind of civil response from "the other side of the aisle" that his gracious, respectful speech assumed might be possible from serious adults about to stop bickering and be constructive.

At least Mr. Wilson is reported to have apologized (see "Obama Accepts Wilson’s Apology" on the New York Times blog, "The Caucus"):

The outburst was a political gift to the White House, underscoring Mr. Obama’s point that the health care debate has been plagued by incivility. Mr. Obama could not seem to resist returning to that point on Thursday, just as soon as he gave Mr. Wilson a pass.
    "I do think that, as I said last night, we have to get to a point where we can have a conversation about big important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol, without name calling," the president said. Americans, he said, "are turned off when they see people using wild accusations, false claims, name calling sharply ideological approaches to solving problems. They want pragmatism."
    As for Mr. Wilson, he said in an interview on CNN that he was told by the Republican leadership to apologize, and that he was "very grateful" the president had accepted.